Calendrier du 07 novembre 2018
Development Economics Seminar
Du 07/11/2018 de 16:30 à 18:00
Salle R2.01, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris
RIGOL Natalia (MIT Economics)
Targeting High Ability Entrepreneurs Using Community Information: Mechanism Design In The Field.
écrit avec Reshmaan Hussam (HBS) and Benjamin Roth (HBS)
Microentrepreneurs in low-income countries have high marginal returns to capital yet face
significant credit constraints. Because returns are highly heterogeneous, the cost of assessing
credit worthiness often makes lending to this sector unprofitable. In this paper, we show that (1)
community knowledge can help overcome information asymmetries prevalent in poorly developed
financial markets and that (2) appropriately designed elicitation mechanisms can extract truthful
community reports. We asked entrepreneurs in Maharashtra, India to rank their peers on
metrics of business profitability and growth potential. To assess the validity of their reports, we
then randomly distributed cash grants of USD 100 to a third of these entrepreneurs. We find
that information provided by community members is highly predictive of the marginal return
to capital: entrepreneurs ranked in the top tercile earn returns of 23% per month, which is
three times the average return within the sample. We horserace community rankings against a
machine learning prediction built using entrepreneur characteristics and find that peer reports
are predictive over and above observable traits. Yet community information is only useful if it
is feasible to collect truthful statements. We experimentally vary the elicitation environment
and demonstrate agency problems when community members have incentive to lie: accuracy
of community reports decreases by a third when cash grants are at stake. But we also show
that tools from mechanism design can be used to address these agency problems. Paying for
truthfulness using a peer prediction rule fully corrects for strategic misreporting induced by
the high-stakes environment. Public reporting and cross-reporting techniques motivated by
implementation theory also significantly improve the accuracy of peer reports.
Texte intégral
Economic History Seminar
Du 07/11/2018 de 12:30 à 14:00
S. R1.13 Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan - 75014 Paris
COGNEAU Denis (PSE)
Recherche sur le colonialisme français au Centre Simiand
Je tenterai de présenter de manière concise plusieurs travaux de recherche sur différents aspects du
colonialisme français, à la fois passés et en cours, qui constituent un puzzle inachevé, soulève des
questions non résolues et justifient de nouveaux projets. Ces travaux concernent : (i) la structure des
Etats coloniaux et leur évolution : capacité fiscale et dualisme ; (ii) les comparaisons avec les colonies
britanniques en termes de fiscalité et de dépenses, de politiques d’éducations et de politiques salariales ; (iii) la capacité fiscale et le dualisme dans les anciennes colonies françaises depuis leur indépendance (expériences socialistes, boom des matières premières exportées, ajustement structurel) ; (iv) la mesure du « coût » de l’Empire ; (v) inégalité en situation coloniale, répartition de la charge fiscale, conscription militaire (et « impôt du sang »), et conditions de vie des populations assujetties ; (vi) la sélection et l’action des élites administratives coloniales : le cas des gouverneurs ; (vii) flux de capitaux privés et entreprises coloniales ; (viii) politiques du colonialisme, lobbies coloniaux.