Biography:

Victor Gay is an assistant professor of economics at Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST). His research focuses on the long-run process of cultural change, and on the role of historical institutions for long-run economic growth. In his dissertation, The Legacy of the Missing Men: World War I and Female Labor in France Over a Century, he provided quantitative evidence for persistent impact of World War I in France on female labor and attitudes toward gender roles. He also developed research on the theory of democratization as well as on the role of language structures for economic behavior. He has published in the American Journal of Political Science, Economics and Politics, the Review of Economics of the Household, and Applied Economics Letters. He has served as a referee for the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Labor Research, the Journal of the European Economic Association, and the Quarterly Journal of Political Science. 

He obtained his PhD in Economics from the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago in Spring 2018, where he was a CISSR Dissertation Fellow during the academic year 2017-2018. He also obtained a Master degree in Economics from the University of Chicago, a Master degree in Economics from the University of Cergy (France), as well as an MBA from ESSEC Business School (France). 

Abstract: 

With my project, I will study the long-run impact of French military fatalities in World War I on the behavior of women and gender roles in French society. I am interested in uncovering the specific pathways through which the shock of losing so many young men in the War affected women’s’ working behavior using rigorous empirical methods. Analyzing how World War I affected preferences and beliefs about gender roles throughout society will be a step toward a better understanding of the dynamics of the profound change in the role of women in society throughout the twentieth century.