Center for Environmental Economics - Montpellier - Next events feed

EE Seminar : Green costs of good faith: the consequences of reduced liability on illegal gold mining and deforestation

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 11:00:00 +0200

Speaker: Gustavo M. Oliveira
Address: UMR CEE-M Institut Agro de Montpellier / INRAE - Bat. 26 - salle Asie 2 Place Viala 34000 Montpellier

Supply-chain regulations often depend on the liability imposed on downstream actors. When this is weakened, new incentives for illegal behavior may be transmitted upstream along the supply chain, potentially generating negative externalities. Here we study a policy reform in Brazil that introduced a “good-faith” principle for gold-purchasing establishments and relaxed the obligation to verify the legal origin of gold. We quantify how this reduced liability contributed to mining-driven deforestation in Indigenous Lands in the Brazilian Amazon. Leveraging spatial variation in gold deposits across these territories, where mining is prohibited, we employ a difference-in-differences approach to compare areas with high versus low exposure to potential gold mining before and after the reform. Our estimates attribute 62% of total observed deforestation in our sample to the policy reform. Further suggestive evidence indicates that land grabbing and the expansion of mining activity are the main mechanisms driving the deforestation effect.

BEE Seminar : Do Good-Looking People Get Better Deals? Physical Appearance, Labour Markets, and Political Inferences

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 11:00:00 +0200

Speaker: Jeanne Bovet
Address: CEE-M, Université Montpellier – Faculté d’économie, salle 014, 95 Rue Vendémiaire, 34000 Montpellier, France

A large body of literature suggests that physical attractiveness shapes social and economic outcomes across a wide range of domains, from hiring decisions and wages to legal sentences and political elections, a phenomenon known as the “Beauty Premium”. I will first present findings from a systematic review, which documents significant methodological limitations in this literature, particularly around the measurement and manipulation of physical attractiveness as an independent variable. Drawing on knowledge from other behavioural sciences, I will then argue that beauty is a multidimensional construct, and that properly testing the Beauty Premium requires new experimental paradigms that carefully disentangle its various dimensions. I will then present a programme of research in progress applying these insights to one specific labour market outcome: the role of physical attractiveness in hiring decisions. This work is at an early stage, and I would very much welcome feedback and potential collaborators. Finally, I will present work on appearance-based judgements in political contexts. Using a noise-based reverse correlation design (a psychophysics method that visualises the mental image a person associates with a given category), we elicited mental representations of the faces of Democratic and Republican voters from a sample of 1,000 US partisans, then had a separate sample of 2,725 raters evaluate those images across ten dimensions, including attractiveness, trustworthiness, dominance, and age. Our results reveal strong ingroup projection: partisans on both sides hold similarly positive mental representations of copartisans. Evidence for shared partisan stereotypes is more limited: while Republican faces are perceived as older, less smiling, and more dominant regardless of the rater’s own partisanship, partisans do not converge on a common representation of what a typical Democrat or Republican looks like. These findings have implications for our understanding of affective polarisation, appearance-based biases, and the formation of stereotypes.

Meeting : FAST Annual meeting 2026

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Address: UMR CEE-M Institut Agro de Montpellier / INRAE - 2 Place Viala 34000 Montpellier

The FAST project, winner of the Priority Research Programme “Cultivating and Protecting Differently”, is coordinated by Julie Subervie, Director of the Montpellier Center for Environmental Economics (CEE-M). The ambition of the FAST project is to provide a theoretical framework and robust empirical evidence on the effectiveness of public policies aimed at fostering a large-scale transition toward pesticide-free agriculture. To achieve this, the project relies on innovative methodologies combining laboratory and field experiments, action-research approaches, and large-scale simulation models. It brings together a multidisciplinary community of researchers in economics, sociology, law, and management sciences around a common objective: supporting the transition toward a sustainable reduction in pesticide use. Launched in January 2021, the project will conclude at the end of 2026. The 2026 annual meeting therefore represents the final annual meeting organized within the framework of the project before the concluding phase dedicated to presenting and disseminating the project’s results. The 2026 edition of the meeting will be structured around two highlights: The first day will be dedicated to presenting the latest research findings from the project’s different work packages, followed by a cross-cutting synthesis of the work carried out within each of these areas. The second day will focus on developing an overall synthesis of the project in preparation for its final dissemination scheduled for the first half of 2027. To enrich the discussions and provide broader perspectives on the work accomplished, three external keynote contributors will participate during the second day: Simon Fellous Tamara Ben Ari Pierre Labarthe Their complementary perspectives will help open discussions on the scientific, operational, and policy implications of the results produced within the FAST project. Program >>> Practical Information Location: Campus de la Gaillarde 2 place Pierre Viala 34060 Montpellier Contact : Julie Subervie et Alexandre Sauquet Site web du projet FAST >>> En savoir plus sur le projet FAST >>>