Chloé Saurel supported her thesis on June, the 3rd, 2025 at Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas
Abstract
The energy transition is a worldwide endeavor that most countries have come to acknowledge, thanks to the work of scientists all over the world. The use of fossil fuels in our energy-intensive economies for the past centuries has dramatically increased global warming (+1.5 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times), and public policies play a key role in the fight against this highly alarming trend. This dissertation focuses on three aspects of the economics of energy transition: in the first chapter, we conduct a literature review on the energy transition in developing countries; in the second chapter, we focus on estimating the impact of the timing of access to electricity on the labor market in rural Nigeria, as a technology shock like this can have different effects depending on the context of households; in the third chapter, as the energy transition means substantially decreasing energy consumption, we study the efforts of French households to reduce their electricity consumption during the first winter of the war in Ukraine; finally, economic agents, especially households, need to adopt ecologically sufficient behaviors and social norms can play an important part in the shifting of individual behaviors towards low-energy consumption and away from consumerism: the fourth and final chapter of this dissertation focuses on the paradox of social norms which value wealth and purchasing power so much that intrinsically prosocial individuals divert away from pro-environmental behaviors to obtain reputational payoffs.
Access the webpage about her thesis here
