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International audience ; This paper provides new evidence on why municipalities are often reluctant to integrate. Exploiting a French reform that made intermunicipal cooperation mandatory, I find that urban municipalities forced to integrate experienced a large increase in construction, consistent with NIMBYism explaining their resistance, while rural municipalities ended up with fewer local public services. I do not find the same effects for municipalities that had voluntarily integrated prior to the law, while both types of municipality enjoyed similar benefits in terms of public transport and fiscal revenues. These findings support the fact that municipalities resisted to avoid the local costs of integration.

While central governments encourage intermunicipal cooperation to achieve economies of scale, municipalities are often reluctant to integrate. This paper provides new evidence on the factors explaining their resistance by exploiting a 2010 reform in France that forced non-integrated municipalities to enter an intermunicipal community. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, I assess the causal impact of integration on resisting municipalities. Comparing their experience to that of municipalities that had chosen to integrate before the law, I can identify the local consequences explaining why resisting municipalities opposed integration in the first place. I first find that municipalities forced to integrate experienced a 12.5-percent increase in the number of building permits delivered per year. This impact is driven by high-demand urban municipalities, consistent with NIMBYism explaining their resistance to integration. Second, I find that rural municipalities ended up with fewer local public services. I do not find the same effects for municipalities that voluntarily integrated, while I show that both types of municipality enjoyed similar benefits of integration, in terms of better access to public transport and higher fiscal revenues. These findings support the fact that municipalities resisted to avoid the local costs of integration.

International audience ; This paper provides new evidence on why municipalities are often reluctant to integrate. Exploiting a French reform that made intermunicipal cooperation mandatory, I find that urban municipalities forced to integrate experienced a large increase in construction, consistent with NIMBYism explaining their resistance, while rural municipalities ended up with fewer local public services. I do not find the same effects for municipalities that had voluntarily integrated prior to the law, while both types of municipality enjoyed similar benefits in terms of public transport and fiscal revenues. These findings support the fact that municipalities resisted to avoid the local costs of integration.

This dissertation lies at the intersection of Political Economy and Public Economics. It combines quasi-experimental designs with administrative data to understand the determinants and consequences of citizen and policymaker behavior.The first two chapters, in collaboration with Vincent Pons, study the behavior of voters in elections. In Chapter 1, we assess the extent to which voters behave expressively or strategically and the consequences it has on electoral results. Using a regression discontinuity design (RDD) around the qualification threshold for the runoff of two-round elections in France, we compare electoral results when two or three candidates compete. We find that a third candidate's presence substantially increases participation and reduces the vote share of the top two candidates. Crucially, in about 1/5 of the elections, the presence of a third candidate causes the loss of the candidate among the top two that is ideologically closest to her. Hence, we show that the plurality rule often leads to suboptimal outcomes, because many voters value voting expressively over voting strategically.Chapter 2 investigates which type of information affects voter and candidate behavior, focusing on one specific piece of information: candidate rankings. Building on the data collected for the first project and digitizing electoral results for older elections, we isolate the impact of first-round rankings on second-round outcomes. We use an RDD in French local and parliamentary elections, where up to three or four candidates can qualify for the second round. Results show that arriving marginally first, second, or third in the first round has large effects on a candidate's likelihood of running and winning in the second round. These results remain strong even when only two candidates qualify (and thus there is no need for coordination), suggesting that the desire to vote for the winner is an important driver of voter behavior.Chapter 3 studies the behavior of policymakers and seeks to understand mayors' reluctance to ...

This dissertation lies at the intersection of Political Economy and Public Economics. It combines quasi-experimental designs with administrative data to understand the determinants and consequences of citizen and policymaker behavior.The first two chapters, in collaboration with Vincent Pons, study the behavior of voters in elections. In Chapter 1, we assess the extent to which voters behave expressively or strategically and the consequences it has on electoral results. Using a regression discontinuity design (RDD) around the qualification threshold for the runoff of two-round elections in France, we compare electoral results when two or three candidates compete. We find that a third candidate's presence substantially increases participation and reduces the vote share of the top two candidates. Crucially, in about 1/5 of the elections, the presence of a third candidate causes the loss of the candidate among the top two that is ideologically closest to her. Hence, we show that the plurality rule often leads to suboptimal outcomes, because many voters value voting expressively over voting strategically.Chapter 2 investigates which type of information affects voter and candidate behavior, focusing on one specific piece of information: candidate rankings. Building on the data collected for the first project and digitizing electoral results for older elections, we isolate the impact of first-round rankings on second-round outcomes. We use an RDD in French local and parliamentary elections, where up to three or four candidates can qualify for the second round. Results show that arriving marginally first, second, or third in the first round has large effects on a candidate's likelihood of running and winning in the second round. These results remain strong even when only two candidates qualify (and thus there is no need for coordination), suggesting that the desire to vote for the winner is an important driver of voter behavior.Chapter 3 studies the behavior of policymakers and seeks to understand mayors' reluctance to ...

This dissertation lies at the intersection of Political Economy and Public Economics. It combines quasi-experimental designs with administrative data to understand the determinants and consequences of citizen and policymaker behavior.The first two chapters, in collaboration with Vincent Pons, study the behavior of voters in elections. In Chapter 1, we assess the extent to which voters behave expressively or strategically and the consequences it has on electoral results. Using a regression discontinuity design (RDD) around the qualification threshold for the runoff of two-round elections in France, we compare electoral results when two or three candidates compete. We find that a third candidate's presence substantially increases participation and reduces the vote share of the top two candidates. Crucially, in about 1/5 of the elections, the presence of a third candidate causes the loss of the candidate among the top two that is ideologically closest to her. Hence, we show that the plurality rule often leads to suboptimal outcomes, because many voters value voting expressively over voting strategically.Chapter 2 investigates which type of information affects voter and candidate behavior, focusing on one specific piece of information: candidate rankings. Building on the data collected for the first project and digitizing electoral results for older elections, we isolate the impact of first-round rankings on second-round outcomes. We use an RDD in French local and parliamentary elections, where up to three or four candidates can qualify for the second round. Results show that arriving marginally first, second, or third in the first round has large effects on a candidate's likelihood of running and winning in the second round. These results remain strong even when only two candidates qualify (and thus there is no need for coordination), suggesting that the desire to vote for the winner is an important driver of voter behavior.Chapter 3 studies the behavior of policymakers and seeks to understand mayors' reluctance to ...

This dissertation lies at the intersection of Political Economy and Public Economics. It combines quasi-experimental designs with administrative data to understand the determinants and consequences of citizen and policymaker behavior.The first two chapters, in collaboration with Vincent Pons, study the behavior of voters in elections. In Chapter 1, we assess the extent to which voters behave expressively or strategically and the consequences it has on electoral results. Using a regression discontinuity design (RDD) around the qualification threshold for the runoff of two-round elections in France, we compare electoral results when two or three candidates compete. We find that a third candidate's presence substantially increases participation and reduces the vote share of the top two candidates. Crucially, in about 1/5 of the elections, the presence of a third candidate causes the loss of the candidate among the top two that is ideologically closest to her. Hence, we show that the plurality rule often leads to suboptimal outcomes, because many voters value voting expressively over voting strategically.Chapter 2 investigates which type of information affects voter and candidate behavior, focusing on one specific piece of information: candidate rankings. Building on the data collected for the first project and digitizing electoral results for older elections, we isolate the impact of first-round rankings on second-round outcomes. We use an RDD in French local and parliamentary elections, where up to three or four candidates can qualify for the second round. Results show that arriving marginally first, second, or third in the first round has large effects on a candidate's likelihood of running and winning in the second round. These results remain strong even when only two candidates qualify (and thus there is no need for coordination), suggesting that the desire to vote for the winner is an important driver of voter behavior.Chapter 3 studies the behavior of policymakers and seeks to understand mayors' reluctance to ...

This dissertation lies at the intersection of Political Economy and Public Economics. It combines quasi-experimental designs with administrative data to understand the determinants and consequences of citizen and policymaker behavior.The first two chapters, in collaboration with Vincent Pons, study the behavior of voters in elections. In Chapter 1, we assess the extent to which voters behave expressively or strategically and the consequences it has on electoral results. Using a regression discontinuity design (RDD) around the qualification threshold for the runoff of two-round elections in France, we compare electoral results when two or three candidates compete. We find that a third candidate's presence substantially increases participation and reduces the vote share of the top two candidates. Crucially, in about 1/5 of the elections, the presence of a third candidate causes the loss of the candidate among the top two that is ideologically closest to her. Hence, we show that the plurality rule often leads to suboptimal outcomes, because many voters value voting expressively over voting strategically.Chapter 2 investigates which type of information affects voter and candidate behavior, focusing on one specific piece of information: candidate rankings. Building on the data collected for the first project and digitizing electoral results for older elections, we isolate the impact of first-round rankings on second-round outcomes. We use an RDD in French local and parliamentary elections, where up to three or four candidates can qualify for the second round. Results show that arriving marginally first, second, or third in the first round has large effects on a candidate's likelihood of running and winning in the second round. These results remain strong even when only two candidates qualify (and thus there is no need for coordination), suggesting that the desire to vote for the winner is an important driver of voter behavior.Chapter 3 studies the behavior of policymakers and seeks to understand mayors' reluctance to ...