Photo Benjamin Monnery

BENJAMIN MONNERY

MAÎTRE DE CONFÉRENCES

Research interests

  • arrow_right Droit et économie
  • arrow_right Economie politique et constitutionnelle
  • arrow_right Criminalité, délinquance
  • arrow_right Parlement

Research group

    Comportements, Droits et Bien-être

Contact

HAL

2023-23

Is participatory democracy in line with social protest? Evidence from the French Yellow Vests movement

Benjamin Monnery, François-Charles Wolff

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Abstract
Participatory democracy and public consultations are increasingly being used to shape public policy or resolve political issues. In France, the Grand Débat was launched in early 2019 as a democratic response to the Yellow Vests movement, a massive grassroots social protest. With more than 500,000 participants, the Grand Débat platform was interpreted as a popular success by the government and the media, but little is known about which citizens expressed their opinions online. Although participants on the platform were anonymous and only answered public policy questions, we are able to infer their support for the Yellow Vests movement by using a second platform (a Facebook app) that asks similar questions as well as support for the Yellow Vests. We find that a large majority of participants in the Grand Débat did not support the Yellow Vests movement, in contrast to the general population at the time. This is evidence of a strong self-selection of participants on political grounds, resulting in a biased representation of French public opinion.
Mot(s) clé(s)
participatory democracy; social protest; public opinion; selection on observables and unobservables
2023-11

Trust in the fight against political corruption: A survey experiment among citizens and experts

Alexandre Chirat, Benjamin Monnery

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Abstract
In Western democracies, the last decades are characterized by a transformation of the relationship between citizens and their representatives, towards greater accountability, transparency and anti-corruption efforts. However, such evolutions are sometimes suspected of paradoxically fueling populism and reducing political trust. In this article, we investigate to what extent a new public institution in charge of monitoring the integrity of elected officials is likely to attract popular support and restore citizens' trust in democracy. We focus on France and its main anti-corruption agency, the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life (HATVP), launched in 2013. We run a survey among 3,000 representative citizens and 33 experts, and augment it with an experimental treatment where we randomly provide simple, concise information on the activity and record of the HATVP. Our results first show a large divergence between the opinions of the average citizen and the much more optimistic views of experts about the state and dynamics of political integrity in France. Second, we find that citizens have highly heterogeneous beliefs and those with high political distrust are not only more likely to vote for populist candidates or abstain, but also the least informed about the anti-corruption agency. Third, our information provision experiment has meaningful, positive impacts on citizens’ perceptions of HATVP, political transparency and representative democracy. Moreover, we show that some of the largest impacts are found among initially distrustful and poorly informed citizens, stressing the potential for communication and information to change the political perceptions and attitudes of disillusioned citizens.
Mot(s) clé(s)
integrity ; corruption ; political trust ; populism ; survey experiment
2021-26

Economie du travail en prison : enjeux, résultats et recommandations

Benjamin Monnery, Anna Montagutelli, Saïd Souam

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Abstract
In France as in other countries, prison faces the challenge of securing inmates' reentry and preventing recidivism. Theoretically, prison work offers a direct opportunity to improve reentry prospects, but only one quarter of prisoners have access to work today in France, compared to 36% twenty years ago. This article provides a summary of the challenges at stake with prison work. It reviews the theoretical and empirical research on the impacts of rehabilitation programs and discusses the potentiel effects of prison work on social welfare. The article also makes the case that the supply of prison work and public spending in this area are insufficient in France, considering the externalities involved. Finally, the article develops public policy recommendations for prison work to deliver its full potential.
Mot(s) clé(s)
prison ; work ; reentry ; recidivism ; public policies
2020-12

Qualité des études d'impact et travail parlementaire

Benjamin Monnery, Bertrand du Marais

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Abstract
Since 2009, the French Government is required to produce a regulatory impact assessment (RIA) of the bills introduced in the Parliament, in order to document ex-ante their legal, economic, social or environmental consequences. This article proposes a statistical analysis of a sample of thirty impact assessments published from june 2017 to august 2019, representing about half of the new bills over this period. First, the article documents the heterogeneous and often mediocre quality of impact assessments through a series of indicators, and attempts to identify the determinants of such quality. Second, the article investigates the use of RIA by parliamentarians under the current 15th legislature and shows that, while this use is limited and mostly driven by opposition parties, better RIA can definitely contribute to parliamentary work. Finally, the reasons for the relatively poor quality of RIA and ways for improvement are discussed.
Mot(s) clé(s)
regulatory impact assessments ; ex-ante evaluation ; Parliament ; Government
2019-20

Prison, Semi-Liberty and Recidivism: Bounding Causal Effects in a Survival Model

Anaïs Henneguelle, Benjamin Monnery, François-Charles Wolff

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Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of semi-liberty as an alternative to prison on recidivism in France. Our analysis is based on a unique dataset comprising 1,445 offenders, all eligible to semi-liberty. In the absence of an instrumental variable affecting access to semi-liberty but unrelated to recidivism, we turn to selection-on-observable methods as well as sensitivity analyses to bound the causal effect of interest. Our results under treatment exogeneity (Cox regressions) and conditional independence (matching) show that semi-liberty is associated with a reduction of 22% to 31% in offenders’ hazard of recidivism in the five years after release. The estimated effects decrease, but remain negative and significant when credible confounders are introduced. Overall, our analysis lends strong support for a beneficial effect of semi-liberty compared to prison.
Mot(s) clé(s)
Recidivism, semi-liberty, halfway houses, prison, survival analyses, sensitivity analyses
2019-7

Les déterminants locaux de la participation numérique au Grand débat national : une analyse économétrique

Hamza Bennani, Pauline Gandré, Benjamin Monnery

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Abstract
This paper analyses the local determinants of the electronic participation to the "Grand débat". First, we highlight the spatial heterogeneity of the participants using their zip code. Second, we use an econometric approach to assess the local determinants of the general participation and the participation on each of the four topics of the "Grand débat". The results show that the median standard of living and the education level are the main determinants of the general participation, whereas some specific variables explain the participation of each of the four topics.
Mot(s) clé(s)
Grand débat, electronic participation, local determinants
2018-21

Can Public and Private Sanctions Discipline Politicians? Evidence from the French Parliament

Maxime Le Bihan, Benjamin Monnery

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Abstract
This paper investigates the effects of sanctions on the behavior of deputies in the French National Assembly. In 2009, the Assembly introduced small monetary sanctions to prevent absenteeism in weekly standing committee meetings (held on wednesday mornings). Using a rich monthly panel dataset of parliamentary activity for the full 2007-2012 legislature, we study the reactions of deputies to (i) the mere eligibility to new sanctions, (ii) the actual experience of a salary cut, and (iii) the public exposure of sanctioned deputies in the media. First, our diff-in-diff estimates show very large disciplining effects of the policy in terms of committee attendance, and positive or null effects on other dimensions of parliamentary work. Second, exploiting the timing of exposure to actual sanctions (monthly salary cuts versus staggered media exposure), we find that deputies strongly increase their committee attendance both after the private experience of sanctions and after their public exposure. These results suggest that monetary and reputational incentives can effectively discipline politicians without crowding out intrinsic motivation.
Mot(s) clé(s)
political economy; political accoutability; sanctions; reputation; motivation
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