Research projects
Find out more about our research projects
Our research center’s faculty is one of the most productive of the French community in terms of articles concerning all fields of economy. This research is supported through different research projects with French and international institutions.
Our research center attracts both competitive funding from research institutions and partnerships with public and private partners.
Academic Grants
Laws, women and social change (LAWSCHANGE)
Thema participants : Maëlys (Associate Professor at CY Cergy-Paris University)
Funding: CY Initiatives (2025-2029)
Summary: LAWSCHANGE analyses how economic inequalities can influence the legal system, particularly women’s access to justice. The project examines the societal impacts of laws relating to gender discrimination and domestic violence. Collaborating Universities: Tours University, Hambourg University, Namur University. .
Work from Home and Household Inequality in Labour supply and other Uses of Time (ANR WHIN)
Thema participants: Olivier Donni (Professor at CY Cergy-Paris University)
Principal Investigator: Elena Stancanelli
Funding: ANR (2024-2029)
Summary: Working from home is rapidly expanding and is expected to remain widespread in the future, with significant but still poorly understood effects on daily life, well-being, and inequality. Since the Covid pandemic, one in five workers in France works from home at least one day per week, though low-skilled workers rarely have this opportunity, deepening social divides. This project aims to fill the theoretical gap by developing a household decision-making model that incorporates remote work, combining insights from collective models, job search theory, cultural transmission, and time-use sociology, and by providing new empirical evidence across countries with different gender norms and industrial structures. .
Land Market Regulations and Territorial Inequalities (ANR LAMARTINE)
Thema participants: Guillaume Chapelle (Professor at CY Cergy-Paris University)
Funding: ANR (2023-2028)
Summary:
The LAMARTINE project aims to measure land-use regulations and assess their socioeconomic and environmental impacts. It begins by documenting and quantifying local land regulations to build a public database, then uses these data to separate the value of land from that of buildings, estimate land wealth distribution, and analyze the redistributive potential of a land tax. Finally, the project will develop spatial equilibrium models to evaluate how land regulations affect housing markets, urban form, welfare, and environmental policy design.
HARMFISC
Thema participants: Laurence Jacquet (Professor at CY Cergy-Paris University)
Funding: CY Initiative 2023 – 2027
Summary: The HarmFisc project, funded by the 2023 CY Initiative call, explores how tax systems can be made more coherent and used as tools to address inequality, pollution, and climate change. It analyzes how individuals and firms adjust their behavior in response to tax reforms, focusing on the taxation of labor, capital, and land income across several countries. Combining theoretical modeling with international data, the project aims to provide policymakers with frameworks to design fairer and greener tax systems, including through instruments such as property taxes and environmental incentives.
Collaborating Universities: University of Oslo, University of Toronto, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Past projects
THEMA researchers have participated to several research projects in the past, including ANR grants (8 in the period 2018-2023), EU-level grants (5 in the period 2018-2023), or research Chairs (Chaire Gestion des risques et financements des PME).
Current Projects
Laws, women and social change (LAWSCHANGE)
Funding: CY Initiative (2025-2029)
Principal Investigator: Maëlys de la Rupelle (CYU)
Partners: Tours University, Hambourg University, Namur University.
Summary: LAWSCHANGE analyses how economic inequalities can influence the legal system, particularly women’s access to justice. The project examines the societal impacts of laws relating to gender discrimination and domestic violence.
Work from Home and Household Inequality in Labour supply and other Uses of Time (ANR WHIN)
Funding: ANR (2024-2029)
Principal Investigator: Elena Stancanelli (Paris School of Economics)
Thema coordinator: Olivier Donni (CYU)
Partners: Institut d’études politiques de Paris, Paris School of Economics, Université La Réunion
Summary: Working from home is rapidly expanding and is expected to remain widespread in the future, with significant but still poorly understood effects on daily life, well-being, and inequality. Since the Covid pandemic, one in five workers in France works from home at least one day per week, though low-skilled workers rarely have this opportunity, deepening social divides. This project aims to fill the theoretical gap by developing a household decision-making model that incorporates remote work, combining insights from collective models, job search theory, cultural transmission, and time-use sociology, and by providing new empirical evidence across countries with different gender norms and industrial structures.
Land Market Regulations and Territorial Inequalities (ANR LAMARTINE)
Funding: ANR (2023-2028)
Principal Investigator Guillaume Chapelle (CYU)
Summary: The LAMARTINE project aims to measure land-use regulations and assess their socioeconomic and environmental impacts. It begins by documenting and quantifying local land regulations to build a public database, then uses these data to separate the value of land from that of buildings, estimate land wealth distribution, and analyze the redistributive potential of a land tax. Finally, the project will develop spatial equilibrium models to evaluate how land regulations affect housing markets, urban form, welfare, and environmental policy design.
HARMFISC
Funding: CY Initiative (2023-2027)
Principal Investigator: Laurence Jacquet (CYU)
Partners: University of Oslo, University of Toronto, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Summary: The HarmFisc project, funded by the 2023 CY Initiative call, explores how tax systems can be made more coherent and used as tools to address inequality, pollution, and climate change. It analyzes how individuals and firms adjust their behavior in response to tax reforms, focusing on the taxation of labor, capital, and land income across several countries. Combining theoretical modeling with international data, the project aims to provide policymakers with frameworks to design fairer and greener tax systems, including through instruments such as property taxes and environmental incentives.
Fraude Évitée
Funding: DGFiP(2024-2025)
Principal Investigator: Sébastien Laffitte (CYU)
Summary: The project on “avoided fraud” is funded the Direction Générale des Finances Publiques (DGFiP) and explores behavioral responses to anti-avoidance tax policies using newly available administrative data.
Past projects
THEMA researchers have participated to several research projects in the past, including ANR grants (8 in the period 2018-2023), EU-level grants (5 in the period 2018-2023), or research Chairs (Chaire Gestion des risques et financements des PME).
