# Projects

#### Labor Tax in a Dynamic Search-and-Matching Model

We analyse the impact of labor income tax in an heterogeneous workers framework with search frictions and aggregate shocks.

# Teaching

## 2017-2018

• Lecturer: Jean-Marc Robin, Professor Sciences Po and UCL
• Content: OLS, GLS, IV, qualitative response models, limited dependent variables, Stata

• Content: introduction to probability theory and regression analysis with a focus on applications in finance and economics

## 2016-2017

• Lecturer: Johannes Boehm, Assistant Professor Sciences Po
• Content: inter-temporal consumption and saving decisions, quantity theory of money, neo-keynesian models, central bank’s inflation bias, commitment vs discretion in monetary policy, bank runs

### Introduction to Econometrics and Statistics (graduate)

• Lecturer: Matteo Mogliani, Senior Economist at the Banque de France
• Content: introduction to probability theory, univariate and multivariate regression models, inference and hypothesis testing

• Lecturer: Jean-Marc Robin, Professor Sciences Po and UCL
• Content: OLS, GLS, IV, qualitative response models, limited dependent variables

# Publications

### Efficiency and contestability in emerging market banking systems

This paper explores some of the potential determinants of efficiency and contestability in the banking systems of major emerging countries, using a sample of 24 countries over the period 2004 -2013. Efficiency is estimated using both stochastic frontier and data envelopment analyses. Market contestability is measured with the Panzar-Rosse H-statistic. Potential drivers of efficiency and market contestability are then discussed.
In OECD Journal: Economic Studies

# Recent Posts

### How to Create a Julia Package

In this post, my goal is to briefly explain how to create an unregistered Julia package, how to synchronize it with your Github account, and how to start testing your code automatically using TRAVIS CI. I started writing this post as a reminder to myself. I am posting it here in the hope that it may be useful for someone else. More on this topic can be found by reading the official Julia’s manual.

### The Simulated Method of Moments: a Parallel Implementation

In my previous post, I discussed how the the simulated method of moments could be used to estimate parameters without using the likelihood function. This method is useful because many “real-life” applications result in untractable likelihood functions. In this post, I use the same toy example (estimation of the mean of a mutlivariate normal random variable) and show how to use the parallel computing capabilities of julia and MomentOpt to speed-up the estimation.

### The Simulated Method of Moments

As Thomas Sargent said: “A rational expectations equilibrium model is a likelihood function” However in many cases, the likelihood function is too complicated to be written down in closed form. To estimate the structural parameters of the model, one can still use Monte-Carlo methods. In this post, I would like to describe the simulated method of moments (SMM), which is a widely used simulation-based estimation technique. A Simple Setting I want to illustrate the SMM in one of the simplest settings you could think of: the estimation of the mean of a normal density.

### Solving Bellman Equations by the Collocation Method

A large class of economic models involves solving for functional equations of the form: A well known example is the stochastic optimal growth model. An agent owns a consumption good $y$ at time $t$, which can be consumed or invested. Next period output depends on how much is invested at time $t$ and on a shock $z$ realized at the end of the current period. One can think of a farmer deciding the quantity of seeds to be planted during the spring, taking into account weather forecast for the growing season.

### Solving a simple RBC model in Dynare

Dynare is a rich software to solve, estimate and analyse rational expectation models. While it was originally designed to solve and estimate DSGE models, Dynare has also recently been used to solve and simulate heterogeneous agents models (see Winberry and Ragot for two very different approaches). Below is a simple example on how to solve and simulate a simple RBC model using Dynare. A simple model The economy is composed of a representative agent who maximizes his expected discounted sum of utility by choosing consumption $C_t$ and labor $L_t$ for $t=1,…,\infty$ $$\sum_{t=1}^{+\infty}\big(\frac{1}{1+\rho}\big)^{t-1} E_t\Big[log(C_t)-\frac{L_t^{1+\gamma}}{1+\gamma}\Big]$$

# Computing

For computational intensive programs, I use Julia. For statistics, I mainly use R and Stata. For everything else, I use Python. I have made contributions to the following open source projects:

## Open Source Projects

Name Role Description Status
MomentOpt.jl Contributor Parallel derivative-free moment optimization in Julia.
Dierckx.jl Contributor Julia wrapper for the dierckx Fortran library