Research

Work in progress Link to heading

Roads and child health in Sub-Saharan Africa Link to heading

With Luisito Bertinelli, Evie Graus, Jean-Francois Maystadt. (WP HERE)

This paper examines the impact of road access on food security in Sub-Saharan Africa from 1980 to 2012. Using geolocated data on child malnutrition and road networks, we assess the broader consequences of road infrastructure, balancing economic gains from accessibility against potential drawbacks such as ecological damage, land-use change, and dependence on external actors (e.g., pressure on smallholder farmers). To address endogeneity, we adopt an instrumental-variable approach, constructing fictitious road networks based on the inconsequential units framework. Our findings indicate that the benefits of roads outweigh their costs: proximity to paved roads significantly improves food security for young children. The main mechanisms are increases in healthcare utilization, household wealth, and cropland area, while market expansion points to the early stages of structural transformation.

Civil War Driven Trade Shocks and Their Footprint: Roads, Pollution, and Development in West Africa Link to heading

With Evie Graus

This paper looks shifts in trade transits in West Africa, resulting from Ivory Coast’s civil war in the 2000. Coastal countries in the region compete to attract the flow of goods from landlocked countries to their ports. With an internal civil war disrupting access to Ivory Coast’s port of Abidjan, we study this event as a quasi-natural experiment that affected Ivory Coast’s neighboring coastal countries. In particular, these redirected flows likely effected well-connected areas with international roads leading to ports. We use road proximity and measures of network centrality in a diff-in-diff setting, to study the effect of surging transit on population density and built-up areas. We also explore whether pollution grows, as a side effect. Preliminary findings suggest an heterogeneous impact across countries.

Understanding the drivers of Cross-border mobility Link to heading

With Frédéric Docquier and Vincent Dautel. (WP HERE)

First work package of the project CRoss-border mobility, HOUSing market developments, and IneQualities (CROHOUSINQ)

In this study, we look into key forces that shape the joint decision of workers on where to live and where to work. We focus on the context of cross-border work in Luxembourg or France, using detailed data on French-Born individuals from Grand-Est. We investigate and simulate how economic shocks, especially from the labor and housing markets, influence these decisions at different education levels.

International drivers of immigration policies. Link to heading

With Dr. Melissa Tornari. Stage of the paper: draft available on demand.

This paper aims at assessing the international dimension of a country’s asylum policy decisions in Europe. In this context, countries’ choices may depend not only on own characteristics, but also on the decisions and characteristics of connected countries. We explore these patterns via a flexible econometric model which allows for both spatial and temporal dynamics. The paper contribute to the existing literature by proposing estimates that allow to capture spillovers, as well as feedback-effects, along various dimensions of proximity. We find evidence that countries’ acceptance rates and processing times do depend on the choices of their neighbors, and that Germany’s open-door policy announcement induced some spillover effects.

Publications Link to heading

Peracchi, S. (2025). Migration Crisis in the Local News: Evidence from the French-Italian Border. Journal of Urban Economics.
Beine, M., Peracchi, S., & Zanaj, S. (2023). Ancestral diversity and performance: Evidence from football data. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 213, 193-214. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268123002561)