The 2021 AFSE PhD Prize has been awarded “ex-aequo” to Mariona Segu (Université Paris-Saclay) under the supervision of Gabrielle Fack and Miren Lafourcade and Thomas Douenne (Paris School of Economics) under the supervision of Katheline Schubert. In addition to the high quality of both theses, the jury also appreciated the relevance of their work and the policy implications that can be drawn from their topical issues.
Mariona’s thesis entitled “Three essays on local housing markets” explores three aspects of the real estate market that have received little attention so far: the effects on house prices of tourism development such as peer-to-peer accommodation and an increase in the number of tourists travelling by air. She also studies the impact of the tax on vacant dwellings on the vacancy rate.
Thomas’ thesis “Essais sur l’économie des politiques environnementales : préférences, croyances, et redistribution ” helps to better understand citizens’ attitudes towards environmental policies. His work shows the paradox facing environmental policies: citizens care about the environment and the climate and support the implementation of ambitious climate policies, but at the same time they oppose the carbon tax. Thomas addresses the possible explanations for this paradox.
The very high quality of the submitted theses also led the jury to award a special mention to Raphaël Lardeux (Université Paris 2) for his thesis entitled “Économie Publique Comportementale avec Agents Hétérogènes”, supervised by Etienne Lehmann.
Source: AFSE, May 2021