Eva Lestant

Eva Lestant is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Stanford University. She works on economic challenges faced by cities in low- and middle-income countries. She use tools from applied microeconomics, machine learning, and empirical industrial organisation, combining structural models with primary data collection and field experiments. She also worked at the CREST Center in Paris, analyzing the long-term impact of a nationally implemented apprenticeship and entrepreneurship program in Cote d’Ivoire.

King Center Supported Research

2026 - 2027 Academic Year | Graduate Student Fellowship

Coordination Failures and Market Organization among Small Firms

Procurement costs dominate informal retailers' variable costs, yet retailers forego large-scale economies by sourcing individually. We study what prevents coordination and what happens when barriers fall. A randomized experiment in urban Côte d'Ivoire offers information, prompted meetings, and monitoring. Prompted meetings alone raise participation by 26%, identifying initiation costs — not information or enforcement — as the central friction. Groups persist at 12 months with no decay, and cooperation spreads to untreated retailers in the same market. Treated retailers stock 9–14% more variety. Shared sourcing reduces procurement costs and consumer prices, with incomplete pass-through. A two-stage model of retail competition organizes these findings and evaluate counterfactuals.