Thomas Lloyd — Assistant Professor of Economics at emlyon business school
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Quantitative Finance & Economics at emlyon business school. My research interests span Public and Development
Economics with a focus on education,
inequality, externalities, and the design and evaluation of public policies.
I obtained my PhD in Economics from the University of Michigan in 2026. I previously worked as a research assistant at CREST,
the Department of Economics of Ecole Polytechnique and ENSAE. I hold master's degrees from Ecole Polytechnique
and HEC
Paris, and completed my undergraduate degree at the Toulouse School of
Economics.
: Would consumers be willing to pay more for goods for which there is less inequality in wages across those involved in their production? In incentive-compatible behavioural choice studies on representative samples of the English and US populations, we find significantly positive willingness to pay for such inequality reductions in over 80% of subjects. Whilst it varies with political leaning and the extent of the inequality reduction, willingness to pay is positive across the political spectrum and for all studied inequality differences. It is higher for more intuitive and informative inequality-reporting formats. Our findings have policy implications for both governments and firms. On the one hand, they suggest the promise of universal provision of product-level inequality information as a tool for moderating income inequality. On the other, they highlight the potential relevance of inequality reporting for firms' marketing strategies.
Presented at MannheimTaxation 2026 (Mannheim), NTA 2025 (Boston)* (presentation by a co-author), and IIPF 2025 (Nairobi)
: Should externality taxes be reduced if they are regressive? We introduce a model in which the government raises revenue from distortionary income and commodity taxes which also play an externality correction role. Whether the tax on the externality should be adjusted away from the Pigouvian level of marginal damage depends on why households differ in their consumption patterns. Differences in demand due to preference heterogeneity across the income distribution change the optimal tax, while differences due to income effects do not. We derive sufficient statistics for optimal policy, and use them to study the optimal tax on carbon-intensive consumption in the United States. Our empirical results suggest that the carbon tax should be set only slightly lower than the Pigouvian level. When we allow for heterogeneity in preferences at each income level as well as across the income distribution, our recommended carbon tax moves even closer to the Pigouvian benchmark.
: How does early educational quality affect longer-term academic outcomes? We shed light on this question via a natural experiment in the Philippines—the flawed implementation of a mother tongue education policy in public schools in kindergarten to Grade 3. This policy led to an unexpected decline in educational quality, but differentially in a subset of schools strongly predicted by pre-policy student language composition. We use language composition variables as instrumental variables for treatment. Leveraging panel data and confirming robustness to pre-trends, we find that the policy led to declines in standardized test scores in public primary schools. Employing a triple-difference strategy with Philippine Census data (across cohorts, localities, and decadal censuses), we show that by 2020, cohorts fully exposed to the policy completed 0.3 fewer years of schooling. By revealing how a policy-induced reduction in early education quality reduces educational attainment in later years, our results underscore the importance of investing in the quality of education in the first years of schooling.
Presented at MWIEDC 2026 (Madison)* (presentation by a co-author)
: This paper examines the long-run economic impact of differential European colonial rule in Africa, by exploiting differences arising from the arbitrary borders established during the Scramble for Africa (1876-1912). Using a regression discontinuity design along the full set of British-French colonial borders in West and Central Africa, we explore the impact of colonizer identity on local measures of economic development. We find that areas formerly under British rule exhibit higher nighttime light intensity (2-6%), which translates into substantially higher local GDP per capita (USD 1,620-2,220). At the individual level, these areas display higher educational attainment, lower unemployment rates, and improved public good provision. We explore mechanisms and find sharp institutional discontinuities at colonial borders. Areas formerly under British rule display lower perceived corruption in formal government institutions, particularly local government, and higher trust in parliaments. Perceived judicial corruption is lower, while agreement that court decisions must be obeyed is stronger, in line with differences in legal origin. However, traditional leaders show higher perceived corruption on the British side, consistent with indirect rule empowering traditional authorities as intermediaries. Colonial legacies also shape nation-building. British areas show weaker national identity and lower colonial language use, alongside lower perception of unfair treatment of one's ethnic group. These findings indicate that differential colonial governance strategies created persistent institutional divergences that continue to shape economic development in contemporary Africa.
