May 26, 2026 – 14.30h – Room 1038

This paper studies the long-run political consequences of forced displacement when refugees carry distinct political ideas. With the collapse of the Spanish Republic in 1939, 500,000 left-wing leaning refugees fled into France, where logistical constraints quasi-randomly determined refugee camp locations. Exploiting this setting, we identify the causal effect of refugee exposure on political behaviour. Exposed municipalities shift away from Socialist support toward the Communist Party and display greater resistance activity and left-wing associational life, consistent with the diffusion of political ideas. Drawing on new individual-level data, we show that refugees concentrated near camp sites over the long run, providing a demographic channel through which political effects persisted and resurfaced in local political participation patterns decades later.

This paper investigates the impact of the #MeToo movement in the workplace, drawing on French survey data on harassment behaviours and administrative data on worker flows. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that, following the #MeToo movement, women began leaving high-risk workplaces at a significantly higher rate. This increase is mainly driven by women who quit their jobs. Both men and women who exit highrisk plants subsequently adjust their job search strategies toward less tòxic workplaces.

May 19, 2026 – 14.30h – Room 1038

One in two women in the U.S. report experiencing physical violence, sexual violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime, and gun access is a central channel through which abusers can harm and control partners. I study whether state reforms that restrict domestic abusers’ access to firearms reduce violence against women. Leveraging variation in law changes across time and states, I find significant declines in reported violence after changes in the law with spillovers beyond intimate-partner incidents. The pattern is consistent with changes in coercive control and deterrence mechanisms. The results indicate that carefully scoped firearm prohibitions can reduce violence against women and these findings are relevant to inform policy discussions on gun laws and women’s safety.