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Welcome! I am a Visiting Assistant Professor in Princeton University’s Economics Department (Research Program in Development Economics and Industrial Relations Section) for the year 2025-2026. I am also an Associate Professor (without tenure) in the Economics Division at Columbia Business School.

My research primarily focuses on working conditions, labor rights, and firm productivity in developing countries. I am especially interested in how the intersection of global supply chains with local institutions affect firms’ and workers’ outcomes and how labor market institutions affect economic development.

I am a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in Development Economics, an Affiliate of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), a Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) in Organizational Economics, and a research affiliate of the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA). I am also affiliated to the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), International Growth Centre (IGC), the Chazen Institute for Global Business, and the Columbia Center for Development Economics and Policy (CDEP). I am an IGC lead academic for Bangladesh.

Curriculum Vitae (Link)
E-mail: l.boudreau@columbia.edu

Working Papers

Monitoring Harassment in Organizations – with Sylvain Chassang, Ada González-Torres, and Rachel Heath
Revise and Resubmit, Review of Economic Studies

Supplementary Materials

Coverage: The Visible Hand Podcast; VoxDev Column; World Bank Development Impact Blog; Business Scholarship Podcast

Policy briefs: J-PAL Summary; PEDL Research Note

We experimentally evaluate secure survey methods for monitoring harassment in organizations. We partner with a Bangladeshi garment manufacturer and survey its workers. “Hard garbling” responses to sensitive questions, i.e., automatically recording a random subset as complaints, increases reporting of physical harassment by 290%, sexual harassment by 271%, and threatening behavior by 45%, from rates of 1.5%, 1.8%, and 9.9% under direct elicitation. Rapport-building and removing team identifiers do not increase reporting. We show that garbled reports can be used to consistently estimate policy-relevant statistics of reported harassment. In our data, harassment is widespread, most managers partake, and victims are isolated.

Refereed Publications

Leaders in Social Movements: Evidence from Unions in Myanmar  – with Rocco Macchiavello, Virginia Minni, and Mari Tanaka (American Economic Review (2025), 115(6), 1975–2000)

Supplementary Materials

Coverage: VoxDev Column; Faculti Video

Policy briefs: J-PAL Summary; Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business Research Brief

Multinational enforcement of labor law: Experimental evidence on strengthening occupational safety and health (OSH) committees (Econometrica (2024), 92(4), 1269–1308)

Supplementary Materials

Coverage: Trade Talks Interview (Podcast); Review by ProMarket;  VoxDev Talks Interview (Podcast); The Daily Star (Bangladesh)

Policy briefs: International Growth Centre Blog Post; Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business Research Brief; J-PAL Summary

Migrants, experience, and working conditions in Bangladeshi Garment Factories– with Rachel Heath and Tyler McCormick (Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2024), 219, 196–213)

Non-Refereed Publications

International Trade and Development(Issue 2), Atkin, David, Khandelwhal, Amit, et al. VoxDevLit Vol. 4, No. 2 (2025): 1-61. (Issue 1, 2022)

Foreign Direct Investment and Development, Garetto, Stefania, Pavcnik, Nina, Ramondo, Natalia, et al. VoxDevLit Vol. 13, No. 1 (2025): 1-77.

Global Value Chains in Developing Countries: a Perspective from Coffee and Garments  -with Julia Cajal-Grossi and Rocco Macchiavello (Journal of Economic Perspectives (2023), 37(3), 59–86) – Coverage: VoxDev Podcast

Work in Progress

Escrow Mechanisms for Group-based Reporting: Evidence from Bangladesh’s Garments Sector – with Sylvain Chassang and Ada González-Torres (PAP accepted via pre-results review at the Journal of Development Economics)

Relationships and Responsibility – with Julia Cajal-Grossi, Canyon Can, and Rocco Macchiavello

Gender and Communication in the Workplace – with Sakib Mahmood and Oren Reshef

The Roles of Information and Search Frictions in Determining Working Conditions and Wages – with Md. Shakil Ahmed and Rachel Heath

Market-based Information to Predict Small Firms’ Marginal Returns to Capital and Other Business Support Services – with Amanda Awadey and Elwyn Davies