Position(s) at the Institute

Professor, International Economics

Director, Centre for Finance and Development
Head, PhD in Development Economics Programme

Profile

PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jean-Louis Arcand has been Professor of International Economics and Development Studies at the Graduate Institute since 2008. He has also been recently appointed Chair of Development Studies. Jean-Louis Arcand is associate editor of the Journal of African Economies and the Revue d'Economie du Développement, co-editor of the European Journal of Development Research, and Founding Fellow of the European Union Development Network (EUDN). He was assistant and then Associate Professor at the University of Montréal, and Professor at the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches en Développement International (CERDI). Professor Arcand holds a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA. His research focuses on the microeconomics of development, particularly in West Africa and the Maghreb, with a current focus on impact evaluation of social programmes. He has been a consultant to the World Bank, the FAO, the UNDP, the Gates Foundation and several national governments. Jean-Louis Arcand is currently leading impact evaluations in Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, The Cameroon, The Gambia, Mali, Morocco, and Senegal, with the topics being investigated ranging from peer mentoring to fight HIV-AIDS to capacity-building in rural producer organisations to foster food security.

Areas of expertise

• Agriculture, land and rural development
• Decentralisation policies
• Development, cooperation and aid policies
• Health, health diplomacy, health governance
• Redistribution policies, social inequalities, poverty
• Africa subsaharan
• Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

Development economics, impact analysis, applied microeconometrics, empirics of civil war, applied contract theory, nutrition and health, empirical analysis of economic growth, applications of non-expected-utility models of decisionmaking under uncertainty.

Selected publications

• "Deforestation and the Real Exchange Rate," Journal of Development Economics, 86(3), 2008, 242-262 (with P. Guillaumont and S. Guillaumont Jeanneney).
• "Moral Hazard and Marshallian Efficiency: Evidence from Tunisia," Journal of Development Economics, 83(2), 2007, 411-445 (with C. Ai and F. Ethier).
• "Tax Compliance under Rank Dependant Expected Utility," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review (with G. Rota-Graziosi), 30(1), 2005, 57-69.
• "Rendement de l'Education et Choix des Instruments.  Application sur Données vietnamiennes," Revue Economique, 56(3), 2005, 563-572 (with B. d'Hombres and P. Gyselinck).
• "Racial Discrimination in the Brazilian Labour Market: Wage, Employment and Segregation Effects," Journal of International Development (with B. d'Hombres), 16(8), 2004, 1053-1066.
• "How to Make a Tragedy: On the Alleged Effect of Ethnicity on Growth," Journal of International Development (with P. Guillaumont and S. Guillaumont Jeanneney), 12(7), 2000, 925-938.
• "Inefficacité marshallienne, partage de coûts, et modèles contractuels avec marchés manquants: résultats empiriques tunisiens," L'Actualité Économique, (with C. Ai and F. Ethier) 74(3), 1998, 315-341.
• "Development Economics and Language: The Earnest Search for a Mirage," International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 121(7), 1996, 119-157.
• "Land Ownership, Working Capital, and Agricultural Output: Egypt, 1913-1958," Journal of African Economies 5(1), 1996, 92-158.
• "Disequilibrium Dynamics during the Great Depression," Journal of Macroeconomics (with E. Brezis) 15(3), 1993, 553-589.

Fellowship and activities

Consultant to the World Bank, the FAO of the United Nations, as well as several national governments.

Documents