Aurélie Slechten

Aurélie Slechten
[email protected]
European Center for Advanced Research in Economics and Statistics (ECARES)
Université libre de Bruxelles
50, Av. F.D. Roosevelt, CP139
1050 Brussels, Belgium
Phone: +32 499 26 45 34
Personal details:
Date of birth
Nationality
Languages
July 3, 1985
Belgian
French: native / English: fluent / Dutch: average
Fields of interest:
Environmental Economics, Market Design, Microeconomics
Education:
ECARES, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
o Ph.D., Economics, April 2013,
Dissertation title: "Policies for Climate Change"
Supervisor: Estelle Cantillon
Committee: Paola Conconi, Andreas Lange, Patrick Legros and David Martimort
o Master Degree in Economics (Quantitative Economics), June 2008,
The Greatest Honors
Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
o License Degree in Economics, June 2007,
The Greatest Honors (each year)
Current position:
May 2013-present
Postdoctoral Fellow, at ECARES, Université libre de Bruxelles
(Research advisor: Estelle Cantillon)
Teaching experience:
2005-06
2006-08
2009-10
2008-13
Teaching assistant, Université libre de Bruxelles, Undergraduate Mathematics.
Teaching assistant, Université libre de Bruxelles, Undergraduate Introductory
Economics.
Teaching assistant, Université libre de Bruxelles, Undergraduate Introductory Statistics.
Teaching assistant, Université libre de Bruxelles, Undergraduate Mathematics.
Refereed journal publication:
Slechten A. (2013), Intertemporal links in cap-and-trade schemes, Journal of Environmental
Economics and Management, in press.
Research papers:
“Environmental agreements under asymmetric information” (2013)
In a two-country model, I analyze international environmental agreements related to polluting emissions
when a country's abatement costs are private information and participation to an agreement is voluntary. I
show that the presence of asymmetric information may prevent countries from reaching a first-best
agreement if this information asymmetry is too high. I propose a new channel to restore the feasibility of the
first-best agreement: pre-play communication. By revealing its abatement cost through a certification agency
in a pre-play communication stage, a country commits not to misreport this abatement cost during the
negotiations of an agreement. I show that there exist transfer schemes between countries such that they
optimally accept to undergo certification. The first-best agreement is now implementable for levels of
information asymmetry for which this was not the case in the model without certification.
“Measuring the impact of international agreements on global CO2 emissions” (2013), with
Vincenzo Verardi
This paper considers the effect of international air-pollution agreements ratified since 1970 on carbon dioxide
emissions, the main cause of anthropogenic climate change. The analysis is based on a panel dataset of 150
countries over the period 1970 - 2008. While the literature generally focuses on one particular treaty, we
analyze the effect of many agreements related to air-pollutants, which are linked to CO2 emissions, using a
two-way (country, year) fixed effects model. Agreements used in our analysis cover three subjects: acid rain,
ozone depletion and climate change. We show that ratifying an additional acid rain treaty has a significant
and negative impact on the level of CO2 emissions even when controlling for the self-selection bias. Ozone
depletion and climate change agreements have a negative but non-significant effect on CO2 emissions. We
suggest two interpretations for those results in terms of: (1) the more local nature of pollutants causing acid
rains and (2) the relative ease to implement acid rain treaties.
Awards and scholarships:
2008-12
2007
FNRS doctoral grant, Université libre de Bruxelles
Etienne Sadi KIRSCHEN Award of the best undergraduate thesis in economics,
AEBR (Université libre de Bruxelles)
Conferences:
2010
ENTER JAMBOREE, Toulouse, France
9th Journées Louis-André Gérard-Varet (IDEP), Marseille, France
4th World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists, Montreal, Canada
2012
11th Journées Louis-André Gérard-Varet (IDEP), Marseille, France
19th Annual Conference of the European Association of Environmental and Resource
Economists, Prague, Czech Republic
2013
ENTER JAMBOREE, Brussels, Belgium
20th Annual Conference of the European Association of Environmental and Resource
Economists, Toulouse, France