Pierre Rousseaux

I am currently a second year PhD candidate at CREST (Ecole Polytechnique, ENSAE) supervised by Prof. Roland Rathelot and Prof. Arne Uhlendorff. I am also a research affiliate at IPP.

During my first year I was a research economist at the Institut des Politiques Publiques (CREST, Paris School of Economics) in its labor market division.

My research focuses on labor economics, econometrics and policy evaluation. I also study research questions in international trade.

More precisely, my research in labor economics focuses on job seekers’ search behavior, unemployment insurance (its effects on job seekers' search mechanisms, workers, and its design), and information frictions in the hiring process. I also provide research consultancy to the European Investment Bank on trade-related issues, especially trade dependencies, and the risks they entail.

I am the director, founder and editor in chief of Oeconomicus, an online journal that promotes the results of economic research, makes it accessible to public debate, and brings together actors of the academic community and institutions to enhance the understanding of (research in) economics.

Contact me by mail pierre.rousseaux@ensae.fr/pierre.rousseaux@polytechnique.edu

or follow my research and activities on...

New publications ! (see below for quick summaries of each)

"Réforme du salaire journalier de référence et trajectoires professionnelles", 2025, with Fontaine, F. and M. To, in Rapport du comité d’évaluation de la réforme de l’assurance chômage 2019-2021, French Ministry of Labor; See the summary!
A review of EU trade dependencies, 2025, in the EIB (European Investment Bank) flagship investment report 2024/2025

New Media

L’économie au service de la planète : comprendre, agir, évaluer , Cité de l'Economie, March 21, 2025
Et si ma banque faisait faillite ? Entre mythe, réalité et protections modernes, Cité de l'Economie, February 7, 2025
Strengthening the European Union’s economic resilience: How to address trade dependencies?, CREST, CRESTive Columns, September 9, 2024
Assainissement des finances publiques : l'impasse, Les Echos, August 7, 2024 (online 08/07 and newspaper 08/08)
L’éducation, la source de tous les maux, L'Opinion, January 4, 2024

Past Events

Organizer, moderator of the conference “Face à la transition climatique, y'a-t-il une transition du travail ?” as part of the Citéco (Cité de l’Économie, museum) Cultural Season on Work, on March 22, 2025 (Replay) with François Fontaine, Anne-Juliette Lecourt and Nathalie Moncel.
Moderator of the conference “Des consommateurs sous influence ? L'impact des politiques publiques incitatives sur le comportement des ménages” for the Citéco and French central bank, on March 20, 2025 (Replay) with Nicolas Jacquement and Pascale Hébel.
Organizer, moderator of the conference “Travailler à l'heure du numérique et de l'IA” as part of the Citéco (Cité de l’Économie, museum) Cultural Season on Work, on March 8, 2025 with Salima Benhamou and Malo Mofakhami.

New publication !

"Réforme du salaire journalier de référence et trajectoires professionnelles", 2025, with Fontaine, F. and M. To, in Rapport du comité d’évaluation de la réforme de l’assurance chômage 2019-2021, French Ministry of Labor; See the summary!

Abstract: This study evaluates the effects of the reform to the salaire journalier de référence (SJR), implemented on October 1, 2021, as part of a broader overhaul of the French unemployment insurance system. The reform introduced substantial changes to the calculation of unemployment benefits for job seekers with fragmented employment histories—those who alternate between periods of work and non-employment. Specifically, while the reform reduced the daily unemployment benefit amount (SJR) by 0 to 10%, it simultaneously extended the maximum potential duration of benefit entitlement by up to 75%, depending on individual profiles. To assess the causal impact of the reform, the study employs a difference-in-differences methodology on administrative data, leveraging the heterogeneous exposure of individuals to the reform. Exposure is determined by the share of time spent without a job between the first and last employment spells over the two-year reference period. The most affected individuals are those with over 50% of non-employment periods between contracts. The results show that for these most exposed individuals, the reform led to a reduction in benefit levels and a substantial increase in potential entitlement duration. Importantly, this shift was associated with a rise in employment: the number of days worked in the six months following job loss increased by 5% to 20% for the most exposed, with estimated employment-to-benefit elasticities ranging from –0.5% to –0.9%. The reform also reduced reliance on unemployment insurance, with the probability of drawing benefits dropping by approximately 2 percentage points. Despite its objective of encouraging more stable and continuous career paths, the reform does not appear to have had any detectable impact on the nature of the jobs found (e.g. permanent vs. fixed-term contracts), their duration, the wages earned, or broader patterns of occupational mobility. While the reform did reduce benefit generosity, it did not trigger any significant shift toward minimum income schemes such as the RSA, limiting its fiscal effects to the unemployment insurance budget alone. For those receiving unemployment insurance, the combination of lower benefit amounts and quicker returns to work translated into a reduction in cumulative benefits received, with losses reaching up to €1,000 over a six-month period.

VR n°16_réforme assurance chômage_SJR et trajectoires pro_synthèse.pdf

New Paper !

Check here to see a page dedicated to trade vulnerabilities (methodologies, EU analysis, EU-country analysis)

A review of EU trade dependencies, 2025, in the EIB (European Investment Bank) flagship investment report 2024/2025

Abstract: This contribution analyzes the EU’s trade vulnerabilities from 2002 onwards, identifying critical imported products and their impact on value chains. Using the European Commission’s methodology combined with new criteria from Mejean and Rousseaux (2024), it highlights a growing dependence on specific suppliers, particularly China, whose share in EU trade dependencies hasincreased while those of the US and the rest of the world have declined by 3 to 10 percentage points. The study shows that the most critical vulnerabilities lie upstream in value chains, with 49% of vulnerable products situated more than three stages from final consumption, meaning supply disruptions could severely impact European industries. Moreover, trade dependencies are structurally concentrated in key sectors such as chemicals, metals, and ceramics, which are essential for strategic industries. These vulnerabilities persist over time, making targeted policy responses crucial. While some affect consumer goods with limited consequences, the most concerning ones involve essential industrial inputs, where disruptions pose systemic risks. To address these challenges, the study underscores the need for a balanced resilience strategy, combining supplier diversification, local production, and industrial coordination. Managing the trade-off between resilience and free trade is essential to avoid excessive costs while ensuring the EU’s economic security.

Evolution of trade dependencies imported by the EU27 between 2002 and 2022, by methodologies.

Source: EIB Investment Report 2024/2025, Chapter 5, Box C (P. Rousseaux)

Evolution of the upstreamness of trade dependencies imported by the EU27 between 2002 and 2022, by methodologies.

Source: EIB Investment Report 2024/2025, Chapter 5, Box C (P. Rousseaux)

Identifying European trade dependencies, 2024, with I. Mejean; in Pisani-Ferry, J, B Weder Di Mauro and J Zettelmeyer (eds), Paris Report 2: Europe's Economic Security, CEPR Press, Paris & London.

CEPR Bruegel Paris Report, Reports webpage, CEPR's Paris Symposium 2023

Media: Bruegel's podcast, VOXeu Column, CRESTive Columns

Seminar: Seminar: CEPII-Banque de France Competitiveness Seminar

Abstract: We review and extend upon existing literature using product-level trade data to identify trade dependencies that expose the European Union to potential disruptions. While acknowledging the significance of concentrated foreign input sourcing as a source of vulnerability, a comprehensive assessment of vulnerabilities should also consider the potential for substituting away from disrupted input sources, both domestically and abroad. This may necessitate devising novel statistical measures at the European level. We present a novel methodology that identifies trade dependencies by integrating these substitution sources. Our review encompasses normative arguments justifying public interventions to improve the resilience of value chains. We intersect our identified dependencies with a measure of geopolitical risk, their upstreamness in the value chain, and also focus on critical products and strategic green technologies. The specific targeting of these policies varies depending on the nature of risks they aim to mitigate. Finally, we discuss the range of policy tools available for crafting a resilience policy.

This figure sequentially shows how our additional criteria impact the set of vulnerabilities imported by the EU. Beginning with 5,381 products imported by the consolidated EU from 2015-2019 (we aggregate trade and production data to focus on persistent dependencies), the European Commission's three criteria (from its "bottom-up approach") identify 378 vulnerable products. Restricting the set to products for which 50% of domestic absorption is satisfied by extra-EU imports reduces it to 228 products. Finally, by considering ex-post substitutability in the event of a shock affecting these products, we identify 49 strategic dependencies after narrowing down to those (among the 228) with very low substitutability between suppliers. This last set of vulnerabilities accounts for 0.5% of the EU's total imports.