Research

with Felix Stips and Konstantinos Tatsiramos

This paper studies how extended potential benefit duration (PBD) in unemployment insurance reshapes reemployment quality in Germany. Using German administrative data, we exploit four sharp age-based discontinuities in PBD to trace how the effect of extended coverage on wage-loss probability varies with the duration of the preceding nonemployment spell. Workers who exit nonemployment early are less likely to suffer wage losses and form more durable matches, while those who stay on for longer durations face sharply elevated wage-loss and job-separation rates. Geographic mobility emerges as a last-resort margin rather than a first choice, observed primarily among workers who find jobs around the point of benefit exhaustion.

with Michel Tenikue

This paper estimates the causal effects of healthcare user-fee exemptions for vulnerable populations in Senegal, exploiting two sharp age-based eligibility thresholds under the country's Universal Health Coverage program: children under five and seniors aged sixty and older. Using nationally representative household survey data and a regression discontinuity design, we find that the symmetric policy architecture produces strikingly asymmetric impacts. For children, losing eligibility raises the cost of care for families without reducing their use of formal healthcare. The exemption functions as a financial shield rather than a driver of access. For seniors, gaining eligibility produces no detectable change in either utilization or out-of-pocket expenditure. The contrast between the two programs points to differences in awareness, rather than statutory design. Heterogeneity analysis confirms that both findings hold broadly across gender, poverty status, and geographic access to facilities.

with Karan Singhal

The 1947 Partition of British India triggered the largest forced migration of the twentieth century, redistributing millions of refugees across newly independent India. We study whether this demographic shock left a lasting imprint on democratic politics. Combining district-level refugee shares from the 1951 Census with constituency-level electoral data covering Indian state assembly elections between 1960 and 2007, we estimate the long-run effects of refugee settlement on electoral competition. We find that constituencies exposed to larger refugee inflows exhibit higher voter turnout, narrower victory margins, and a lower likelihood of electing candidates from national parties. Instead, refugee settlement shifted electoral support toward regional parties and contributed to the long-run denationalization of political competition. Our findings show that large demographic shocks can leave enduring political legacies, reshaping patterns of political representation and party competition long after displacement itself has ended.