Séminaires LEMMA

"Prison Conditions and Recidivism: Evidence from France"

Benjamin Monnery (Paris Nanterre)

Benjamin is Associate Professor of Economics at Paris Nanterre. His research interests lie in law and economics, economics of crime, political economy, and microeconometrics. 

Monday, 13 January 2026, 11h-12h

Lemma - 4 rue Blaise Desgoffe, 75006 Paris. Salle Maurice Desplas

Abstract : This paper investigates the effect of prison conditions on risk of recidivism, following the universe of prison releasees in France from 2016 to 2019.  Using a rich set of public and hand-coded information on all correctional facilities, prison conditions are considered both at the prison-level (e.g.  overcrowding, suicide rates, geographic isolation) and at the individual level (e.g. access to work programs), allowing for a deeper understanding compared to prior research. Exploiting the binding geographical assignment of convicts to prisons, our results suggest a small beneficial effect of soft, reentry-oriented prison conditions on recidivism in France. 

"The Median Voter and Sincere Voting"

John Quah (National University of Singapore), en collaboration avec Gregorio Curello and Bruno Strulovici.

Monday, 16 December 2025, 11h-12h

Lemma - 4 rue Blaise Desgoffe, 75006 Paris. Salle Maurice Desplas

Abstract : It is well-known that in a setting where voters have single peaked preferences over alternatives defined on a one-dimensional space, the median voter’s preference is decisive.   However, in many plausible environments, voters decide among alternatives with multi-dimensional characteristics.  We generalize the notion of a median voter to such multi-dimensional settings and show that under a natural multi-stage voting protocol, the median voter’s preferred alternative is also the eventual outcome of the vote.  Furthermore, this outcome is robust to whether agents vote sincerely, strategically, or switch between these decision rules.