Francois Gerard

Professor François Gerard is a leading academic in University College London's Department of Economics, focusing on Public Economics and Development Economics. He serves as Research Director at the Center for Tax Analysis in Developing Countries (TaxDev) and holds affiliations with institutions including BREAD, CEPR, IFS, and IGC.

• PhD in Economics from University of California, Berkeley
• Academic roles at Columbia University (Assistant Professor) and Queen Mary University of London (Lecturer to Professor)

His research explores social insurance, taxation, and inequality in low-income countries, particularly Brazil. Key methodological contributions include regression discontinuity analysis under manipulation.

Recent work examines:

• Tax compliance linked to sanitation infrastructure
• Union heterogeneity and wage inequality
• Cash transfer impacts on local economies

He has received notable recognition including the Prêmio Haralambos Simeonidis and maintains active software projects like the rdbounds package for causal inference analysis.