Pierre Cahuc appointed Director of LIEPP

LIEPP has announced the appointment of Pierre Cahuc as its Director, with effect from 1 August 2026.

A professor of economics in the Department of Economics at Sciences Po, Pierre Cahuc is a member of the Institut universitaire de France and a researcher at the CEPR and the IZA, where he heads the ‘Labour Markets’ research programme. He also heads the Sciences Po chair dedicated to securing career pathways. He is deputy editor-in-chief of the journal *Economic Policy* and editor-in-chief of the *IZA Journal of Labour Economics*. He was a member of the Economic Analysis Council from 2006 to 2010, and again from 2012 to 2016.

Before joining the department, he was a professor at the École Polytechnique and the École nationale de la statistique et de l’administration économique (ENSAE), where he served as head of economic research at CREST and director of CREST’s macroeconomics laboratory. His research focuses primarily on labour market economics and the relationship between culture and economic performance.

He succeeds Anne Revillard, a professor of sociology at the Centre for Research on Social Inequalities (CRIS), who headed LIEPP from 2020 to 2026.

On taking up his post, Pierre Cahuc outlines the direction he intends to take the laboratory in, his approach to public policy evaluation, and the initial projects undertaken during his term of office.

Interview with Pierre Cahuc

What are the ambitions for LIEPP?

LIEPP is already a national benchmark in the evaluation of public policy. It has 96 affiliated researchers, spans nine disciplines, and has carried out 160 evaluations since 2011. My ambition is to turn it into a leading European platform.

This involves three things:

• Consolidating what makes it unique: its interdisciplinary approach, both at Sciences Po and in partnership with Université Paris Cité.
• Responding to a growing public demand, by building on the partnership established with the OFCE-CEPII, now known as the French Institute of Economics. This enables us to link the micro and macro levels, and to look beyond mere microeconomic effects.
• And to open up further to the international arena, working with leading European centres: LISER, IFS and WZB.

I want a research centre that is useful. Useful to public debate, useful to public decision-making, with high scientific standards.

What is your view on evaluation?

Evaluation is not just about measuring an outcome. It is about understanding why a policy produces that outcome – or fails to do so. An evaluation that simply states ‘it works’ without explaining why cannot be generalised. It applies to a specific scheme, a specific region, or a specific point in time. Identifying the mechanisms involved is what makes a finding applicable elsewhere.

This is where the central role of interdisciplinarity comes in. Quantitative methods establish causality. Qualitative approaches shed light on the contexts and conditions of implementation. These traditions have long operated in silos. They stand to gain a great deal from engaging in dialogue. Evaluating both effects and mechanisms is a complex undertaking: it requires high-level scientific expertise and open debates, conducted with complete independence. Responding to public sector commissions, yes. Reporting what the results actually show, always.

What will be the first project?

The creation of a cross-cutting methodological strand. LIEPP has built up considerable expertise in evaluation methods. This expertise is neither sufficiently visible nor sufficiently shared. This strand will be based on four pillars:

• A regular methodological seminar, building on the legacy of Metheval, open to both researchers and evaluation practitioners within government departments.
• A training component, comprising practical workshops, for students and early-career researchers.
• Dissemination activities: teaching notes, methodological guides and short-form documents aimed at public decision-makers.

And a methodological support unit, which will assist projects both at the outset (evaluation questions, design, access to data) and at the conclusion, regarding the interpretation and robustness of results.

This type of structure exists at the LSE, Harvard and Berkeley. It is lacking in France. It is this gap that we aim to fill.