I have a Ph.D.  in Economics from Uppsala University in Sweden. I am also affiliated with the Uppsala Center for Fiscal Studies. My research is in microeconomic theory, experimental economics, and political economy.

Twitter summary of JMP 

During 2022 I have presented at: TSE BID Workshop; Institute For Advanced Study in Toulouse experimental design workshop; Seminaire Parisien de Théorie des Jeux; CAGE Summer School; 2022 Conference on Mechanism and Institution Design;  Women in Economic Theory 2022 Conference, The University of Chicago; ESA North America Meeting 2022, Santa Barbara; University of Konstanz; Behavioral Economics Workshop, Stockholm School of Economics, European Winter Meeting of the Econometric Society, Berlin, Göteborg University. 

Current research

Devil's Advocates or Bandwagoneers? Sequential voting with costly information 

Abstract: Sequential voting is used in a wide variety of settings: legal, political, expert committees, and social decision-making. This paper is the first to explain why late voters sometimes follow the first voter, commonly known as herding, and why they sometimes get to cast the deciding vote. I extend the standard sequential voting model with a cost of information and show how the two-dimensional information environment uniquely determines the voting and information aggregation outcome. Two types of equilibrium exist. In the first type, there are 'Devil's advocates,' players who support an opposite argument to make people think seriously in information environments where the cost of information or the signal precision is high. In the second type of equilibrium, bandwagons occur because the cost or signal precision is low. As predicted, more participants in a lab experiment act as Devil's advocates when the cost of information is high. The framework has important policy implications. The outcome of the game is often the first-best. Further, when voters have different information costs, one can always define the welfare-maximizing order. 

A Theory of Hypocrisy (with Daniel Spiro) 

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 211, 2023, Pages 401-410, ISSN 0167-2681, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2023.05.007.

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016726812300152X)

Abstract: This paper explains the occurrence of hypocrisy – when the by-society most despised types pretend to be the most revered types. Real-world phenomena include pedophile priests, sex-offender feminists and seemingly very busy dispensable office workers. Building on the signaling framework of Bernheim (1994) – where payoffs consist of an intrinsic cost of falsifying yourself, and a concern for social esteem – we show conditions for emergence of hypocrisy in equilibrium. In such equilibria the most despised types along with the most revered types behave normatively, others do not. Thus, in equilibrium there are ‘rumors’ about those acting the most normatively – society infers that they are either truly normative or despised, but one cannot know who is who. This is to be distinguished from ‘conformity’ – where the most normative and almost-normative types fully follow a social norm. Whether conformity or hypocrisy will arise in equilibrium depends on the cost of falsification, and the number of hypocrites depends on the weight of social esteem. Our theory thus shows how cultural parameters map into equilibrium culture.

Keywords: Social esteem; Hypocrisy; Conformity; Social norm

Sequential or simultaneous voting when information is costly? A welfare analysis

Abstract: How should a committee make decisions when information is costly? In this paper, I show theoretically and empirically that a sequential information acquisition and voting mechanism is better than a simultaneous mechanism. When voters are strategic, the sequential mechanism acts as a coordination device, maximizing information aggregation while minimizing the total cost of information acquisition. Information is two-dimensional: the cost and the quality of available signal structures matter for equilibrium predictions. For non-trivial parts of all information environments, the outcome of strategic play in the sequential game is equivalent to the social optimum. When voters are myopic, only when information is of low cost and quality is total welfare higher under a simultaneous mechanism. A lab experiment confirms the main result: the round-payoff is 22 percent higher in the sequential voting treatment than in the simultaneous treatment. This is explained by a double coordination failure in the simultaneous treatment: the participants are 52 percent less likely to coordinate on an efficient number of voters paying for information. Further, among the groups who did succeed, the informed voter is 23 percent less likely to be pivotal. 

Rational Poseurs: Partisan players in Jury Decision problems with Costly Information