Garance Genicot

Research Interests:

I study how inequality, institutions, and social identities shape economic behavior, political outcomes, and long-run development. My research combines theory, field experiments, and large administrative and survey datasets to understand aspirations, mobility, redistribution, and family dynamics, with applications ranging from electoral systems and gerrymandering to informal insurance, gender norms, and property rights. Research Statement

Active research themes, working papers, and selected publications are outlined below. For a complete list of publications, grants, and professional activities, see my CV.

1. Aspirations and Mobility

How relative economic position shapes growth, mobility, and conflict.

• The Great Gatsby Curve: Upward Mobility, Persistence and Inequality with Laura Mayoral and Debraj Ray (working paper)  Talk 

• Identities in Conflict with Debraj Ray,  Handbook on the Economics of Conflict 2024

• Measuring Upward Mobility, with Debraj Ray,  American Economic Review  2023  Slides

• Upward Mobility in Developing Countries with Carolina Concha-Arriagada and Debraj Ray, Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics forthcoming

• Aspirations and Inequality,, with Debraj Ray, Econometrica 2017. See also the online appendix 

• Aspirations and Economic Behavior, with Debraj Ray, Annual Reviews of Economics 2020. Slides

2. Political Economy and Bureaucracies.

How political institutions and bureaucratic incentives shape the allocation of public resources and the distributional consequences of government intervention.

• Pack-Crack-Pack: Gerrymandering with Differential Turnout with Laurent Bouton, Micael Castanheira and  Allison Stashko (working paper) 

• Hierarchy and Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from the Public Sector with Ghazala Mansuri and Zahra Mansoor (working paper) 

• Redistricting and public goods (ongoing, India)

• Electoral Systems and Inequalities in Government Interventions, with Laurent Bouton and Micael Castanheira Journal of the European Economic Association 2021 Slides

3. Gender and Property Rights

Gendered property rights, household bargaining, and traditional institutions.

• Female Firstborn and Family Structure  (working paper) with Maria Hernandez de Benito

• Women's Land Rights and Village Institutions in Tanzania with Maria Hernandez de Benito, World Development 153, 2022. 

• Suicides and Property Rights in India, with Siwan Anderson, Journal of Development Economics 114, pp. 64-78, 2015. Our column in Ideas for India. 

4. Social and Family Networks.

Identity, information, and pressure in networks, informal insurance, and family transfers.

• Diffusion and Targeting Centrality, with Yann Bramoullé, Journal of Economic Theory, forthcoming (latex notation)

• Tolerance and Compromise in Social Networks , Journal of Political Economy 2022 Slides

• Two-sided Altruism and Signaling, Economics Letter 2016.

• Asymmetry of Information within Family Networks, with Joachim de Weerdt and Alice Mesnard, Journal of Human Resources 2019.  Slides

• What Do Networks Do? The Role of Networks on Migration and 'Coyote' Use, with Sarah Dolfin, Review of Development Economics 2010.

• Informal Risk Sharing in an Infinite-horizon Experiment, with Gary Charness, Economic Journal 2009.

• Risk Pooling, Commitment and Information: An Experimental Test, with Abigail Barr, Journal of the European Economic Association 2008.

• Informal Insurance in Social Networks, with Francis Bloch and Debraj Ray, Journal of Economic Theory 2008.

• Reciprocity in Groups and the Limits to Social Capital, with Francis Bloch and Debraj Ray, American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, May 2007.

• Group Formation and Risk Pooling in a Field Experiment, with Abigail Barr, Orazio Attanasio, Juan Camilo Cardenas and Costas Meghir, AEJ: Applied Economics 2012.

• Informal Risk Sharing in an Infinite-horizon Experiment, with Gary Charness, Economic Journal 2009.

• Risk Pooling, Commitment and Information: An Experimental Test, with Abigail Barr, Journal of the European Economic Association 2008.

• Informal Insurance, Enforcement Constraints, and Group Formation, with Debraj Ray, in Group Formation in Economics: Networks, Clubs, and Coalitions, edited by Gabrielle Demange and Myrna Wooders, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2005.

• Endogenous Group Formation in Risk-Sharing Arrangements, with Debraj Ray, Review of Economic Studies 2003. For a conjecture related to the paper, click here. For robustness checks of Example 2, click here.

Older Working Papers:

• Public Good Provision with Intermediaries, with Francis Bloch.

• Inequality and Risk-Sharing Arrangements.