Please tell us about your research project.
My research studies the interaction between the macroeconomic environment and financial markets. I have two ongoing research projects in this area. The first one studies the role of public debt for the stability of the financial system in the late 1920s in France. Indeed, the 1927-8 public debt restructuring led by Raymond Poincaré is likely to have led to the expansion of French banks overseas, on the eve of the financial and banking crises of the early 1930s. My second project studies the macroeconomic consequences of the concentration of credit risk in a handful of firms. This project, joint with the Banque de France, uses a regulatory database to show that firms’ idiosyncratic shocks do not compensate each other in banks’ credit portfolio and thus impact the supply of credit to unrelated firms. This systemic threat to financial stability may thus impact the conduct of macroprudential policies.
Could you please tell us a bit more about your scholarship/exchange programme?
This six-month research stay is part of a partnership between the MFO and the École normale supérieure of Paris. Its main goal is to build a research proposal for PhD studies, through the deepening of my current research projects and the discovery of a new academic environment.
First impressions of Oxford/the University?
The city is of course beautiful and a perfect environment to carry out research. Everybody at the department of economics, where I attend some lectures, and at the MFO has been very welcoming, so the coming months look particularly bright.
