This dissertation employ applied microeconomics techniques with a specific emphasis on behavioral dynamics within the realms of energy and environmental economics. In Chapter one, we investigates the impact of outdoor temperature on productivity in the service sector, using data from the India Human Development Survey. Our findings suggest a precisely estimated zero effect on interview duration, ruling out significant productivity impacts. In Chapter two, we employs a conditional demand analysis on a Canadian electricity consumer data set, highlighting the effectiveness of local heat pumps and thermostat setbacks for electricity savings. Results also reveal trends favoring newer homes in electricity consumption decline. In Chapter three, I study the causal relationship of spatial peer effects from Canada's largest home energy efficiency retrofit program on energy consumption. My results show that close neighbors to energy efficiency retrofitted homes experience a significant reduction in monthly natural gas and electricity consumption. Moreover, visible retrofits, such as windows and doors, significantly impact peer energy savings compared to less visible retrofits.

Cette thèse comporte trois essais sur les interactions sociales en sciences économiques. Ces essais s’intéressent à la fois au côté théeorique qu’empirique des interactions sociales. Le premier essai (chapitre 2) se concentre sur l’étude (théorique et empirique) de la formation de réseaux sociaux au sein de petites économies lorsque les individus ont des préférences homophilique et une contrainte de temps. Le deuxième essai (chapitre 3) se concentre sur l’étude (principalement empirique) de la formation de réseau sociaux au sein de larges économies où les comportement d’individus très distants sont aproximativement indépendants. Le dernier essai (chapitre 4) est une étude empirique des effets de pairs en éducation au sein des écoles secondaires du Québec. La méthode structurelle utilisée permet l’identification et l’estimation de l’effet de pairs endogène et des effets de pairs exogènes, tout en contrôlant pour la présence de chocs communs. / This thesis includes three essays on social interactions in economics, both from a theoretical and applied perspective. The first essay (chapter 2) focusses on the (theoretical and empirical) study of a network formation process in small economies characterized by the fact that individuals have homophilic preferences and a time constraint. The second essay (chapter 3) is focussed on the study (mostly empirical) of a network formation process in large economies characterized by the fact that distant individuals have approximately independent behaviours. The last essay (chapter 4) is an empirical study of peer effects in education for Quebec high-school teenagers. The structural method used allows for the identification and estimation of the endogenous peer effect and the exogenous peer effects, while controlling for the presence of common shocks.

Cette thèse comporte trois essais sur les interactions sociales en sciences économiques. Ces essais s’intéressent à la fois au côté théeorique qu’empirique des interactions sociales. Le premier essai (chapitre 2) se concentre sur l’étude (théorique et empirique) de la formation de réseaux sociaux au sein de petites économies lorsque les individus ont des préférences homophilique et une contrainte de temps. Le deuxième essai (chapitre 3) se concentre sur l’étude (principalement empirique) de la formation de réseau sociaux au sein de larges économies où les comportement d’individus très distants sont aproximativement indépendants. Le dernier essai (chapitre 4) est une étude empirique des effets de pairs en éducation au sein des écoles secondaires du Québec. La méthode structurelle utilisée permet l’identification et l’estimation de l’effet de pairs endogène et des effets de pairs exogènes, tout en contrôlant pour la présence de chocs communs. / This thesis includes three essays on social interactions in economics, both from a theoretical and applied perspective. The first essay (chapter 2) focusses on the (theoretical and empirical) study of a network formation process in small economies characterized by the fact that individuals have homophilic preferences and a time constraint. The second essay (chapter 3) is focussed on the study (mostly empirical) of a network formation process in large economies characterized by the fact that distant individuals have approximately independent behaviours. The last essay (chapter 4) is an empirical study of peer effects in education for Quebec high-school teenagers. The structural method used allows for the identification and estimation of the endogenous peer effect and the exogenous peer effects, while controlling for the presence of common shocks.

L’objectif de cette thèse est d’étudier les effets de pairs en finance d’entreprise. Trois essais portant sur les entreprises américaines sont proposés. La thèse est organisée en quatre chapitres. Le premier chapitre présente une revue de la littérature financière des théories et des modèles qui motivent les effets de pairs et le comportement de conformité. Plus précisément, nous définissons les effets de pairs et nous proposons une synthèse des études théoriques et empiriques identifiant les effets de pairs et leurs implications sur la psychologie humaine. Ensuite, nous résumons les théories les plus critiques dans la littérature financière qui se sont intéressées à l'impact du comportement des pairs sur les politiques financières de l'entreprise. Enfin, nous discutons les principales questions que pose la mesure des effets de pairs. Nous soulignons en conclusion de ce chapitre l’intérêt de ce sujet et nous présentons les axes d’orientation des recherches futures. Dans les chapitres suivants, nous examinons empiriquement ces effets de pairs dans trois domaines, non encore explorés, dans le contexte du marché américain. Il s'agit notamment de la « mauvaise conduite » des entreprises, du « bien-être » des employés et de l’investissement en recherche et développement.Le deuxième chapitre étudie la présence ou non d’un effet de pairs dans l’explication du comportement frauduleux des entreprises. En utilisant un échantillon de 3 034 entreprises américaines et couvrant la période de 1999 à 2014, nous montrons que les entreprises dont le siège social se situe dans les zones ayant le taux de fraude des « cols blancs » le plus élevé, ont une plus grande probabilité d’avoir un comportement frauduleux. Ce résultat suggère que l'interaction sociale au niveau régional encourage les entreprises à adopter une mauvaise conduite. Des tests complémentaires montrent que ces effets de pairs prévalent dans le cas des entreprises en difficulté alors que nous ne trouvons pas les mêmes résultats pour les entreprises en bonne situation financière. Nous constatons également que ces effets de pairs sont principalement présents dans les régions où le taux de criminalité est élevé, ce qui laisse supposer que les niveaux élevés de criminalité locale sont susceptibles de favoriser une culture de la fraude dans ces domaines.Le troisième chapitre explore les effets de pairs dans les politiques de « bien-être » des employés de l'entreprise. Nous montrons que les entreprises de pairs jouent un rôle important dans la définition des politiques de bien-être des employés d'une entreprise. En utilisant les données d’un échantillon américain de 9 062 observations année/entreprise couvrant la période de 1996 à 2013, nous constatons que les décisions de l'entreprise sur le bien-être des employés sont principalement des réponses aux politiques sociales de leurs pairs. En outre, nos résultats montrent que ce comportement est répandu chez les suiveurs, qui adoptent le comportement des « leaders », mais nous ne trouvons pas ce genre de comportement de la part des entreprises « leaders » du secteur d’activité.Le quatrième et dernier chapitre de la thèse étudie les effets de pairs dans la politique de recherche et développement (R&D) des entreprises. Nous montrons que les entreprises ne décident pas de leurs politiques en R&D d’une manière isolée puisque les entreprises pairs jouent un rôle essentiel dans la définition de ces dernières. En utilisant des données américaines pour un échantillon large de 54 393 observations entreprise/année sur la période de 1991 à 2015, nous constatons que les décisions R&D de l'entreprise sont principalement des réponses aux politiques R&D de leurs pairs. De plus, nous constatons que les effets de pairs en R&D ne sont significatifs qu'en présence d'une forte concurrence sur le marché des produits, alors que ces résultats ne sont pas vérifiés sur les marchés à faible concurrence. / This thesis explores the peer effects in corporate finance. The first chapter provides a review of literature on the theories and models that motivate peer effects and conformity behavior. Specifically, we emphasize on what precisely is meant by peer effects, how existing studies in the literature identify peer effects and its implications on human behavior. Next, we summarize the most critical theories in finance literature that encourage peer effects and the impact of peer behavior on firm financial policies. Last but not least, we discuss the main challenges in measuring peer effects and conclude the chapter by highlighting potential areas of future work in this field. The next chapters empirically examine these peer effects in three important, yet not explored areas of finance in the context of the US market. These include corporate misbehavior, employee welfare, and, research and development.The second chapter examines the presence of peer effects in corporate misbehavior. Using a sample of 3,034 US-listed firms covering 1999‒2014, we show that firms headquartered in areas with the higher white-collar fraud have a higher probability of corporate misbehavior, suggesting that area level social interaction encourages corporate misconduct. Additional analyses show that these peer effects prevail in distressed firms while we do not find such evidence for non-distressed firms. We also find that these peer effects are mainly present in areas with a high crime rate, suggesting that the high levels of local criminality are likely to favor a culture of fraud in these areas.The third chapter explores the peer effects in the firm’s employee welfare policies. We show that peer firms play a significant role in defining employee welfare policies of a firm. Using US panel data for a sample of 9,062 firm-year observations from 1996 to 2013, we find that firm’s employee welfare decisions are responses to their peers’ employee welfare policies. This impact is much higher than any other peer characteristics. Moreover, our additional analysis shows that this behavior is prevalent in followers, who mimic the behavior of leaders but we do not find any such relationship for industry leaders.The fourth and last chapter of the thesis empirically investigates firm peer effects in research and development (R&D) policies. We show that firms do not make their R&D decisions in isolation and peer firms play an essential role in defining the R&D intensity of a given firm. Using US panel data for a sample of 54,393 firm-year observations from 1991 to 2015, we find that firm’s R&D decisions are responses to their peers’ R&D policies. Further, we find that R&D peer effects are significant only in the presence of strong product market competition, while these results do not hold for markets with lower product market competition.

In recent years several municipalities in Sweden have merged their public secondary schools. This has been considered a type of initiative that intends to reduce youth segregation and discrepancies in school quality. This thesis examines in what ways the merging of all public secondary schools in a municipality affects the students’ academic performance and their choice to enroll in the publicschool sector. To do so I use municipality-level aggregate data from the Swedish National Agency for Education on 9th grade students’ academic outcomes and the share of 7th graders enrolled in the public schools. I employ a difference-in-difference approach to estimate the reduced form effect of the school mergers. The control group used in the baseline estimation includes all municipalities that had a constant number of public secondary schools during the time period of my study. I move on to use propensity score matching in order to create a more comparable control group. I then estimate a difference-in-difference regression with match-fixed effects. The results show that the mergers have a negative effect on the municipality-level average GPA. In addition, the municipalities where the mergers have been implemented experience a reduction in the share of students that pass all 9th grade subjects as well as an increase in the share of students who do not have sufficient grades to continue to upper secondary school. The school mergers caused the share of 7th graders enrolled in the publicschool sector to decrease by approximately 10 percentage points. These results indicate that the public secondary school merger is not a panacea for improving student outcomes.

My thesis contains essays on voting theory, market structures and fiscal federalism: (i) One Person, Many Votes: Divided Majority and Information Aggregation, (ii) Runoff Elections and the Condorcet Loser, (iii) On the Influence of Rankings when Product Quality Depends on Buyer Characteristics, and (iv) Redistributing Income under Fiscal Vertical Imbalance. (i) One Person, Many Votes: Divided Majority and Information Aggregation (joint with Micael Castanheira) In elections, majority divisions pave the way to focal manipulations and coordination failures, which can lead to the victory of the wrong candidate. This paper shows how this flaw can be addressed if voter preferences over candidates are sensitive to information. We consider two potential sources of divisions: majority voters may have similar preferences but opposite information about the candidates, or opposite preferences. We show that when information is the source of majority divisions, Approval Voting features a unique equilibrium with full information and coordination equivalence. That is, it produces the same outcome as if both information and coordination problems could be resolved. Other electoral systems, such as Plurality and Two-Round elections, do not satisfy this equivalence. The second source of division is opposite preferences. Whenever the fraction of voters with such preferences is not too large, Approval Voting still satisfies full information and coordination equivalence. (ii) Runoff Elections and the Condorcet Loser A crucial component of Runoff electoral systems is the threshold fraction of votes above which a candidate wins outright in the first round. I analyze the influence of this threshold on the voting equilibria in three-candidate Runoff elections. I demonstrate the existence of an Ortega Effect which may unduly favor dominated candidates and thus lead to the election of the Condorcet Loser in equilibrium. The reason is that, contrarily to commonly held beliefs, lowering the threshold for first-round victory may actually induce voters to express their preferences excessively. I also extend Duverger's Law to Runoff elections with any threshold below, equal or above 50%. Therefore, Runoff elections are plagued with inferior equilibria that induce either too high or too low expression of preferences. (iii) On the Influence of Rankings when Product Quality Depends on Buyer Characteristics Information on product quality is crucial for buyers to make sound choices. For "experience products", this information is not available at the time of the purchase: it is only acquired through consumption. For much experience products, there exist institutions that provide buyers with information about quality. It is commonly believed that such institutions help consumers to make better choices and are thus welfare improving. The quality of various experience products depends on the characteristics of buyers. For instance, conversely to the quality of cars, business school quality depends on buyers (i.e. students) characteristics. Indeed, one of the main inputs of a business school is enrolled students. The choice of buyers for such products has then some features of a coordination problem: ceteris paribus, a buyer prefers to buy a product consumed by buyers with "good" characteristics. This coordination dimension leads to inefficiencies when buyers coordinate on products of lower "intrinsic" quality. When the quality of products depends on buyer characteristics, information about product quality can reinforce such a coordination problem. Indeed, even though information of high quality need not mean high intrinsic quality, rational buyers pay attention to this information because they prefer high quality products, no matter the reason of the high quality. Information about product quality may then induce buyers to coordinate on products of low intrinsic quality. In this paper, I show that, for experience products which quality depends on the characteristics of buyers, more information is not necessarily better. More precisely, I prove that more information about product quality may lead to a Pareto deterioration, i.e. all buyers may be worse off due. (iv) Redistributing Income under Fiscal Vertical Imbalance (joint with Marjorie Gassner and Vincenzo Verardi) From the literature on decentralization, it appears that the fiscal vertical imbalance (i.e. the dependence of subnational governments on national government revenues to support their expenditures) is somehow inherent to multi-level governments. Using a stylized model we show that this leads to a reduction of the extent of redistributive fiscal policies if the maximal size of government has been reached. To test for this empirically, we use some high quality data from the LIS dataset on individual incomes. The results are highly significant and point in the direction of our theoretical predictions.

In this thesis, we explore two different approaches to causal inferences. The traditional approach models the theoretical relationship between the outcome variables and their explanatory variables, i.e., the science, at the same time as the systematic differences between treated and control subjects are modeled, i.e., the assignment mechanism. The alternative approach, based on Rubin's Causal Model (RCM), makes it possible to model the science and the assignment mechanism separately in a two-step procedure. In the first step, no outcome variables are used when the assignment mechanism is modeled, the treated students are matched with similar control students using this mechanism, and the models for the science are determined. Outcome variables are only used in the second step when these pre-specified models for the science are fitted. In the first paper, we use the traditional approach to evaluate whether a husband is more prone to quit smoking when his wife quits smoking than he would have been had his wife not quit. We find evidence that this is the case, but that our analysis must rely on restrictive assumptions. In the subsequent two papers, we use the alternative RCM approach to evaluate if a Harvard freshman who does not smoke (observed potential outcome) is more prone to start smoking when he shares a suite with at least one smoker, than he would have been had he shared a suite with only smokers (missing potential outcomes). We do not find evidence that this is the case, and the small and insignificant treatment effect is robust against various assumptions that we make regarding covariate adjustments and missing potential outcomes. In contrast, we do find such evidence when we use the traditional approach previously used in the literature to evaluate peer effects relating to smoking, but the treatment effect is not robust against the assumptions that we make regarding covariate adjustments. These contrasting results in the two latter papers allow us to conclude that there are a number of advantages with the alternative RCM approach over the traditional approaches previously used to evaluate peer effects relating to smoking. Because the RCM does not use the outcome variables when the assignment mechanism is modeled, it can be re-fit repeatedly without biasing the models for the science. The assignment mechanism can then often be modeled to fit the data better and, because the models for the science can consequently better control for the assignment mechanism, they can be fit with less restrictive assumptions. Moreover, because the RCM models two distinct processes separately, the implications of the assumptions that are made on these processes become more transparent. Finally, the RCM can derive the two potential outcomes needed for drawing causal inferences explicitly, which enhances the transparency of the assumptions made with regard to the missing potential outcomes. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2006 S. 1-13: sammanfattning, s. [15]-161: 4 uppsatser

Il lavoro tratta gli effetti delle interazioni sociali tra compagni di scuola o di classe (c.d. peer effects) sugli apprendimenti degli studenti delle scuole medie. Il periodo di frequenza della scuola media rappresenta un momento critico nello sviluppo dell’adolescente che passa molto tempo con i compagni (a scuola e fuori da scuola) determinando forti legami di amicizia che ne influenzano lo sviluppo. Nel primo e nel secondo capitolo si tratta dell’effetto delle interazioni sociali tra studenti nativi e non nativi sull’apprendimento. Il terzo capitolo analizza il comportamento di cheating durante gli esami ufficiali come una forma di collaborazione che scaturisce da interazioni sociali. Il lavoro contribuisce alla letteratura esistente identificando gli effetti delle interazioni sociali con metodi innovativi e fornendo un’interpretazione stilizzata dei risultati mediante semplici modelli teorici. La tesi utilizza una banca dati innovativa che unisce i risultati dei test Invalsi in matematica e italiano (Esame Finale del I Ciclo, e Programma di Valutazione Nazionale, a.s. 2007-08, 2008-09, 2010-11), a dati amministrativi sulle scuole e dati censuari sulla popolazione (Censimento 2001). I risultati mostrano che le interazioni sociali influenzano in maniera significativa i risultati scolastici degli studenti. / I focus on social interactions among junior high school students attending the same class or the same school. Junior high school is generally considered by educational psychologists as the period in which friendships ties are usually formed and interactions with school mates take a relevant part of students’ time at school and outside school. In first and in the second chapter I focus on the effect on attainment of social interactions between native and non-native students. The third chapter deals with students’ cheating as a form of social interaction among classmates taking an official exam. The thesis contributes to the existing literature in proposing different empirical strategy to identify social interactions parameters and linking the results to stylized theoretical frameworks to shed light on the possible social mechanisms driving the estimated effects. The three chapters exploit rich and newly available datasets combining test score results in Math and Language from INVALSI (First Cycle Final Exam and National Evaluation Program, s.y. 2007-08, 2008-09, 2010-11), school administrative records, and the Italian Population Census Survey 2001. The results of the research demonstrate a strong role played by social interactions among school mates in affecting students’ attainment.

This thesis consists of two parts: Part I (Chapters 2 and 3) critically assesses a set of methodological tools that are widely used in the literature and that are applied to the empirical analysis in Part II (Chapters 4 and 5). Using a randomised experiment, the first chapter compares pen-and-paper interviewing (PAPI) with computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI). We observe a large error count in PAPI, which is likely to introduce sample bias. We examine the effect of PAPI consumption measurement error on poverty analysis and compare both applications in terms of interview length, costs and respondents’ perceptions. Next, we formalise an unproven source of ordinary least squares estimation bias in standard linear-in-means peer effects models. Deriving a formula for the magnitude of the bias, we discuss its underlying parameters. We show when the bias is aggravated in models adding cluster fixed effects and how it affects inference and interpretation of estimation results. We reveal that two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimation strategies eliminate the bias and provide illustrative simulations. The results may explain some counter-intuitive findings in the social interaction literature. We then use the linear-in-means model to estimate endogenous peer effects on the awareness of a community-based development programme of vulnerable groups in rural Tanzania. We denote the geographically nearest neighbours set as the relevant peer group in this context and employ a popular 2SLS estimation strategy on a unique spatial household dataset, collected using CAPI, to identify significant average and heterogeneous endogenous peer effects. The final chapter investigates social network effects in decentralised food aid (free food and food for work) allocation processes in Ethiopia, in the aftermath of a serious drought. We find that food aid is responsive to need, as well as being targeted at households with less access to informal support. However, we also find strong correlations with political connections, especially in the immediate aftermath of the drought.

Cette thèse rassemble principalement des contributions en économie de la science à laquelle les deux premières parties sont consacrées. La première teste l'importance des choix méthodologiques dans la mesure de la production scientifique et étudie les canaux de diffusion de la connaissance. La deuxième s'intéresse aux déterminants individuels et locaux de la productivité des chercheurs et au différentiel de promotion entre hommes et femmes sur le marché du travail académique. Sont établis les résultats suivants : les choix méthodologiques dans la mesure de la production scientifique n'affectent que très peu les classements des institutions de recherche. Les citations et les poids associés à la qualité des journaux mesurent globalement la même productivité de la recherche. La localisation des chercheurs a un impact sur leur productivité dans la mesure où certaines universités génèrent davantage d'externalités que d'autres. Ces externalités sont plus importantes là où les chercheurs sont homogènes en terme de performances, où la diversité thématique est grande, et dans une moindre mesure dans les grands centres de recherche, lorsqu'il y a plus de femmes, de chercheurs âgés, de stars et là où les chercheurs sont connectés à des co-auteurs à l'étranger. Si les femmes sont moins souvent Professeur des Universités (par opposition à Maître de Conférences) que les hommes, ce n'est ni parce qu'elles sont discriminées dans le processus de promotion, ni que le coût de promotion (mobilité) est plus important pour elles, ni qu'elles ont des préférences différentes concernant le salaire et le prestige des institutions dans lesquelles elles travaillent. / The core of this thesis lies in the field of economics of science to which the two first parts are devoted. The first part questions the impact of methodological choices in the measurement of research productivity and studies the channels of knowledge diffusion. The second part studies the impact on individual publication records of both individual and departments' characteristics and analyse the gender gap in occupations on the academic labour market. The main results are the following: methodological choices in the measurement of research productivity do not impact the estimated hierarchy of research institutions. Citations and journal quality weights measure the same dimension of publication productivity. Location matters in the academic research activity: some departments generate more externalities than others. Externalities are higher where academics are homogeneous in terms of publication performance and have diverse research fields, and, to a lower extent, if the department is large, with more women, older academics, stars and co-authors connection to foreign departments. If women are less likely to be full Professor (with respect to Assistant Professor) than men, this is neither because they are discriminated against in the promotion process, neither because the promotion cost (mobility) is higher for them, nor because they have different preferences for salaries versus department prestige. A possible, but not tested, explanation is that women self-select themselves by participating less in or exerting lower effort during the promotion process.