Laura Khoury: co-winner of the 2020 AFSE Thesis Prize.

At the beginning of May, the AFSE announced the winners of the 2020 Thesis Prize: Tomas Jagelka and Laura Khoury. Back on the path of this former PSE student (PPD 2014, PhD 2019).

Laura Khoury

In 2009, Laura Khoury integrated in a preparatory class specialize in literature and social sciences (B/L) at the lycée Lakanal in partnership with the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in Paris. Three years later, she joined the Paris School of Economics within the Master’s Degree in Public Policy and Development. Under the supervision of Antoine Bozio (IPP, PSE, EHESS), she validates her master thesis “An assessment of the insurance and redistribution functions of unemployment benefits in France”.

Early 2015, she continued her education at PSE by integrating the doctoral program. She conducts a thesis through the CIFRE system thanks to a Unedic funding; affiliated to Labor Chair at PSE, she is supporting her thesis in 2019 under the direction of Luc Behaghel (PSE, INRAE) entitled “Optimal unemployment insurance and employment behaviour”. It is thanks to this work that she won at the beginning of May the the AFSE Thesis Prize. This prize is awarded every year by the Association Française de Science Economique and is supported by the Fondation Banque de France for research in monetary, financial and banking economics. In 2020, this prize was awarded ex æquo to Laura and Tomas Jagelka (Polytechnique).

In my dissertation, I use exogenous policy variations in France and detailed administrative data to investigate the interplay between the unemployment insurance system and decisions of agents on the supply and demand sides of the labor market. By emphasizing the role of firms, whereas previous literature has focused mainly on the unemployed, I hope to contribute to a better design of unemployment insurance

Currently, Laura Khoury is a postdoctoral researcher in labour economics and crime economics at the Centre for Experimental Research on Equity, Inequality and Rationality (FAIR) at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) in Bergen, Norway.

While I continue to explore the role of social insurance on the labor market, my current projects focus on the economics of crime. Together with colleagues at the Norwegian School of Economics, we study the impact of incarceration on different outcomes related to both the offender and his network