Agnès Labrousse, Associate Professor of Economics (University of Picardie - Jules Verne) and Frédéric Lebaron, Professor of Sociology at ENS Paris-Saclay, have helped, advised, and guided me with dedication and rigor throughout these five years of my dissertation work.
Arthur Jatteau is an ENS alumnus from the Department of Social Sciences.
His Background
Arthur Jatteau, author of a dissertation in economics that he defended on December 5, 2016, at ENS Paris-Saclay, began his academic career at that same institution as a student in the Department of Social Sciences, where he notably earned his agrégation.
He earned a master’s degree from EHESS and prepared his dissertation under the supervision of an economist, Agnès Labrousse, and a sociologist, Frédéric Lebaron, both of whom are faculty members at the University of Picardie – Jules Verne.
He then followed Frédéric Lebaron to the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin and, in September 2016, to ENS Paris Saclay, where Lebaron is a faculty member in the Department of Social Sciences (DER). He therefore defended his dissertation in economics and sociology in December 2016, within the very department where he had been a student, and at the IDHES laboratory.
Awards and Honors
The Court of Auditors honored Arthur Jatteau by awarding him first prize for his dissertation titled “Proving a Point with Numbers? The Case of Randomized Experiments in Economics.”
It recognizes authors who, regardless of their academic discipline, contribute to a better understanding, the renewal of theoretical approaches, and the development of innovative proposals in the field of public management and finance.
Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, Arthur Jatteau chose as his subject of study the randomized experiment method, often considered the most rigorous and effective way to evaluate the impact of a public policy after the fact. While acknowledging the value of this approach, Arthur Jatteau has demonstrated how it can be complemented by traditional methods used in the social sciences (interviews, questionnaires, and literature reviews).
Arthur Jatteau’s dissertation is thus directly relevant to the Court’s deliberations as part of its mission to evaluate public policies.
Randomized experiments in economics
Arthur Jatteau provides details on his dissertation "The general issue is to examine the relationship between evidence and quantification. How do we prove something using numbers? And what are we really proving?
To do this, I focused my study on one method in particular—one that is very popular in economics—namely, randomized experiments. I have shown that the history of this method is little known and that we would benefit from understanding it better in order to use it more effectively today.
I also examined those who used this method, demonstrating that their social characteristics (particularly their academic and professional backgrounds) partly explained the method’s success.
Finally, I opened the “black box” of this method by examining how, empirically and not just theoretically, it sought to demonstrate its validity. I thus demonstrated that, upon closer examination of how it is actually practiced, it becomes clear that it is not as rigorous as it is supposed to be in theory.
I thus emphasize that the transition from theory to practice must be systematically considered; otherwise, one overlooks the inevitable adjustments that occur when applying a method. I have also sought to explore the political effects of such an obsession with quantification".