PROFILE

PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jean-Louis Arcand is Professor of International Economics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, which he joined in 2008. From 2012 until 2016 he was Director of the Centre for Finance and Development and from 2009 to 2012 he was chair of Development Studies. He is a Founding Fellow of the European Union Development Network (EUDN) and Senior Fellow at the Fondation pour les études et recherches en développement international (FERDI). 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). He holds a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA. His research focuses on the microeconomics of development, with a current focus on impact evaluation of social programme in West Africa and the Maghreb. He has been a consultant to the World Bank, the FAO, the UNDP, the Gates Foundation and several national governments. He is currently leading multi-year impact evaluations in Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, 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.

EXPERTISE DETAILS

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
 

• "Maternal Height and the Sex Ratio," Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 2012, 169-181 (with Matthias Rieger). DOI10.1556/JEP.10.2012.2.3
• "Matching in Community-Based Organizations," Journal of Development Economics 98(2), 2012, 203-219 (with M. Fafchamps).
• "Language in Economic Development: Is English Special and is Linguistic Fragmentation Bad?" forthcoming in English and International Development, E. J. Erling and P. Seargeant, eds., Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications (with F. Grin).
• "Teacher Training and HIV/AIDS Prevention in West Africa: Regression Discontinuity Design Evidence from the Cameroon," Health Economics 19, 2010, 36-54 (with E. Djimeu Wouabe).
• "Santé et salaires : Une estimation en variables instrumentales sur un panel de travailleurs chinois," Economie et prévision, 186(5), 2009, 89-100 (with K. Labar).
• "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.

Working Papers

ACTIVITIES

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