About me

I am a PhD candidate in Economics at CREST, Ecole Polytechnique, IP Paris. In September 2025, I will be joining Hitotsubashi University (Institute for Advanced Study) as an Assistant Professor.

In my research, I apply structural approaches (mostly from urban economics) to questions in development economics. I wrote my PhD dissertation on the role of informal labour and housing in South Africa, and I am working more widely on migration, urbanization, climate change, factor misallocation, structural transformation, and place-based policies. As part of my PhD, I also worked as a consultant for the World Bank.

What’s new:

• Our paper (joint with Paolo Avner, Basile Pfeiffer, Clause Rabe, Harris Selod, and Vincent Viguié) on informal housing in Cape Town is currently under revision at the Journal of Urban Economics.
• I will also be presenting this and other work at the 9th Urbanization and Developement Conference that will be held in Cape Town, South Africa (June 11-12, 2025).

Contact: thomas.monnier@ensae.fr