PhD Defence: Melchior Clerc

Melchior Clerc
UCA, CERDI 
Personal website

Examiners

Simone Bertoli, Professor, Université Clermont Auvergne
Eric Roca Fernandez, Professor Tenure track, Université Clermont Auvergne
Catherine Guirkinger, Professor, Université de Namur
Karine Marazyan, Professor, Université de Rouen Normandie
Marion Mercier, Researcher, Université Paris Dauphine-PSL
Michaël Goujon, Professor, Université Clermont Auvergne

Abstract

This dissertation is composed of three empirical essays in development economics and focuses on the links between culture, spatial mobility, and social norms. Its guiding thread is twofold. First, it examines how researchers measure culture and assign individuals to a cultural origin when mobility weakens the link between place of residence and ancestral origin. Second, it analyzes mobility both as an identification tool and as a possible response to the constraints imposed by local social norms.

The first chapter provides an in-depth replication of Giuliano and Nunn (2021), who relate ancestral climatic variability to a lower importance attached today to tradition. It compares the specifications described in the article with the available replication codes and data, and identifies several discrepancies related to variables, samples, and estimated specifications. Correcting these discrepancies, when possible, reveals a more nuanced relationship between ancestral climatic variability and the importance of tradition than in the original estimates. The chapter thus highlights a blind spot in reproducibility: code can reproduce published tables without corresponding to the specifications described in the text.

The second chapter studies the epidemiological approach, which compares migrants or descendants of migrants living in the same destination country but originating from different places. The chapter shows that, in the case of the United States, self-reported foreign ancestry reflects an ancestral origin, but also the time elapsed since ancestors migrated and the selection of individuals who still report that ancestry. Some results attributed to cultural persistence may therefore reflect differences in migration timing or selection.

The third chapter analyzes mobility as a concrete response to a binding social norm, in the case of female genital cutting in sub-Saharan Africa. When cutting is deeply entrenched, parents who oppose the practice may face substantial social pressure if they refuse to cut their daughters. Using the extit{Demographic and Health Surveys} (DHS) conducted in thirteen sub-Saharan African countries, the chapter examines whether fostering girls into another household can serve as a protective strategy. The results show that, in high-prevalence groups, girls are fostered more often than boys, especially when their mother reports opposing cutting. This strategy is more pronounced when families have credible exit options. Fostered girls are also less likely to be cut, and the decline in the practice after the 1999 Senegalese ban is accompanied by a decrease in fostering where cutting was initially entrenched.

Taken together, the three chapters show that the empirical study of culture depends on the methodological choices through which culture is measured. Mobility appears as a source of identification fragility, a methodological resource, and a concrete strategy for changing exposure to norms.

Keywords

Development, Applied microeconomics, Migration, Child fostering, Female Genital Cutting, Culture. 

theses.fr/s363034