arXiv subjects

Brice Romuald Gueyap Kounga

Publications and source records attributed to Brice Romuald Gueyap Kounga.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Semiparametric Dynamic Logit Model with Endogenous Networks

Many choices persist over time and are made among friends. Teenagers who smoke tend to keep smoking, and they tend to have friends who smoke. Part of this persistence is habit, but part may come from characteristics researchers do not observe, such as a taste for risk, that shape both whether a student smokes and whom they befriend. Methods that treat friendships as given cannot separate the two when the characteristic changes over time. This paper shows how the friendship network itself can, in a dynamic logit model. Two people who form friendships in the same way are assumed to share the same unobserved influence on the outcome, the social influence function, so comparing them cancels it, even when that influence changes between waves, provided the change is shared by people who form friendships in the same way. No specific model of how friendships form is assumed. I propose an estimator built on this comparison and derive its large-sample behavior in two cases: exact matching, when the characteristic and the covariates take few distinct values, and approximate matching, with a jackknife correction for the bias it creates. In simulations, the estimator removes most of the bias left by peer-average controls and by the standard panel method that compares each person only with themselves over time, and its confidence intervals have coverage close to the correct level. An application to adolescent smoking in the Glasgow Teenage Friends and Lifestyle Study illustrates the method and the data it requires.

econ.EM↗

arXiv2026

Nonseparable Dyadic Regression

This paper studies a nonseparable model for dyadic outcomes, such as bilateral trade flows, in which the outcome depends on both agents' characteristics and on a scalar unobservable through an unknown function increasing in that unobservable. I establish identification of a normalized structural function and the error distribution, propose kernel plug-in estimators, and derive a two-regime central limit theory under dyadic dependence in which a shared-agent variance component generically dominates. An agent-level bootstrap is proved consistent in that regime. Simulations show independence-based intervals undercover severely while the bootstrap substantially improves coverage. In bilateral trade data, conditional dispersion falls by more than half between small and large exporters.

econ.EM↗

arXiv2026

Identification and Estimation of a Semiparametric Logit Model using Network Data

This paper studies identification and estimation of a semiparametric logit model in which an unobserved individual characteristic affects both a binary outcome and the formation of social links. In this setting, the endogeneity of the network is informative rather than a nuisance: because the same latent trait drives linking behavior, observed network data can be used to control for unobserved heterogeneity in the outcome equation without imposing a parametric model of link formation. Slope parameters are point identified by a conditional likelihood argument applied to pairs of agents with identical network formation behavior. I propose a kernel-weighted conditional logit estimator that matches agents using codegree distances and establish its consistency. I then derive two asymptotic normality results: an exact root-$n$ result when network types have finite support, and a general result centered at a pseudo-true value whose bias I characterize and remove with a jackknife bias correction. Variance estimators that account for matching on estimated network distances are provided. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate good finite-sample performance, and an empirical application to microfinance adoption demonstrates that accounting for endogenous network formation materially affects estimated covariate effects.

econ.EM↗

arXiv2026

The Long-Term Effects of British and French Colonization in Africa on Trust in Traditional Leaders

Trust in local institutions matters for trade, public goods provision, conflict resolution, and democratic consolidation. Using individual data from rounds 6 and 7 of the Afrobarometer surveys, I document that respondents in former British colonies are substantially more likely to trust traditional leaders than respondents in former French colonies. Cross-country comparisons of this kind are confounded by unobserved heterogeneity in pre- and post-colonial histories. To make progress on identification, I focus on Cameroon, which contains regions colonized by Britain and regions colonized by France within a single modern state, and I exploit the former colonial partition line as a geographic discontinuity, comparing respondents who live close to either side of the anglophone-francophone boundary. The theoretical argument is that the two colonial powers differed systematically in how they treated customary authority: British indirect rule preserved the governance functions of chiefs, while French direct rule subordinated chiefs to the administration and assigned them its most coercive tasks, taxation and forced labor above all, and these divergent experiences shaped the legitimacy of chieftaincy in ways that persist through institutional continuity and socialization. Consistent with this argument, respondents on the formerly British side are 22 to 26 percentage points more likely to trust traditional leaders than their neighbors on the formerly French side, and they are far more likely to have contacted a traditional leader in the previous year.

econ.GN↗