Gautam Rao
PhD Candidate, UC Berkeley Department of Economics
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+1-(734)-846-7754
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Department of Economics
University of California, Berkeley
530 Evans Hall #3880
Berkeley, CA 94720-3880
U.S.A.
[Curriculum Vitae][Updated 31 Oct 2013]
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Job Market Paper:
Abstract: I exploit a natural experiment in India to identify how mixing rich and poor students in schools affects social preferences and behaviors. A policy change in 2007 forced many private schools in Delhi to meet a quota of poor children in admissions. This led to a sharp increase in the presence of poor children in new cohorts in those schools, but not in older cohorts or in other schools. Exploiting this variation, and using a combination of field and lab experiments, administrative data and test scores, I study impacts on three classes of outcomes: (i) prosocial behavior, (ii) social interactions and discrimination, and (iii) academic outcomes. First, I find that having poor classmates makes wealthy students more prosocial and generous. They become more likely to volunteer for a charity at school, more generous towards both rich and poor students in dictator games, and choose more equitable distributions of payoffs in the lab. Second, having poor classmates makes wealthy students discriminate less against poor children, measured by their teammate choice in an incentivized sports contest. Consistent with this, they become more willing to socialize with poor children outside school. Third, I find marginally significant negative effects on test scores in English, but no effect on Hindi or Math. Overall, I conclude that mixing in schools had substantial positive effects on the social behaviors of wealthy students, at the cost of negative but arguably modest impacts on academic achievement. To shed light on mechanisms, I exploit idiosyncratic assignment of students to study groups and find that the effects on social behaviors are largely driven by personal interactions between wealthy and poor students, rather than by changes in teacher behavior or curriculum.
Publications:
(with Stefano DellaVigna, John List and Ulrike Malmendier)
American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, May 2013.
Abstract: Do men and women have different social preferences? Previous findings are contradictory. We provide a potential explanation using evidence from a field experiment. In a door-to-door solicitation, men and women are equally generous, but women become less generous when it becomes easy to avoid the solicitor. Our structural estimates of the social preference parameters suggest an explanation: women are more likely to be on the margin of giving, partly because of a less dispersed distribution of altruism. We find similar results for the willingness to complete an unpaid survey: women are more likely to be on the margin of participation
Working Papers:
(with Stefano DellaVigna, John List and Ulrike Malmendier)
Abstract: Why do people vote? We argue that social image plays a significant role in explaining turnout: people vote because others will ask. The expectation of being asked motivates turnout if individuals derive pride from telling others that they voted, or feel shame from admitting that they did not vote, provided that lying is costly. We design a field experiment to estimate the effect of social image concerns on voting. In a door-to-door survey about election turnout, we experimentally vary (i) the informational content and use of a flyer pre-announcing the survey, (ii) the duration and payment for the survey, and (iii) the incentives to lie about past voting. Our estimates suggest significant social image concerns. For a plausible range of lying costs, we estimate the monetary value of voting ‘because others willask’ to be in the range of $5-$15 for the 2010 Congressional election. In a complementary get-out-the-vote experiment, we inform potential voters before the election that we will ask them later whether they voted. We find suggestive evidence that the treatment increases turnout.
Work in Progress:
School Quality, Student Outcomes and Household Responses: Evidence from School Lotteries in India
(coming soon)
Abstract: I utilize data from school admission lotteries to study the effects of attending a higher quality school on the learning outcomes and non-cognitive skills of students from poor households in Delhi. I also examine how investments by parents respond to a child’s admission outcome, and whether spillovers between siblings are significant. Preliminary evidence suggests large improvements in learning, and shows that parents consider their investments in child education to be complementary to school quality. I identify positive spillovers in English language learning between siblings, but not in mathematics.
Self-Control and Chronic Illness: Theory and Evidence From a Field Experiment
(Endline survey completed)
(with Liang Bai, Benjamin Handel and Ted Miguel)
Abstract: We construct a simple model of preventive health behavior under present biased time preferences, and show how beliefs about future time preferences (sophistication, partial naivete, and perfect naivete) affect how agents are predicted to use, under-use or misuse different types of commitment contracts. We propose a type of commitment contract that has the potential to benefit not just sophisticated present biased agents, but also naifs. We conduct a field experiment focused on increasing the share of patients who actively manage their hypertension by visiting a doctor periodically. The experiment is closely tied to the theory, allowing us to estimate the key parameters of the model. [AEA Pre-Registration]
Gift Exchange at Work (In the field at present) (with Stefano DellaVigna, John List and Ulrike Malmendier) Abstract: We construct a model of a worker's effort choice that includes altruism, warm glow and reciprocity towards employers, as well as the standard cost of effort and monetary incentive motives. We estimate the model using a natural field experiment with temporary workers hired for multiple employers, exploiting randomized within-subject and between-subject variation in (i) fixed pay and piece rates; (ii) the return to the employer; (iii) the type of employer - a firm versus a charity; and (iv) a positive, negative or neutral “gift” to the worker from the employer. The response to variation in piece rates helps us identify the cost of effort function. The response of workers' effort to variation in the return to the employer helps identify and distinguish warm glow and pure altruism. The response to the gift treatments identifies the reciprocity parameters. Putting all the estimates together, we intend to determine the importance of worker altruism towards employers, and help interpret the magnitude of employees' positive or negative reciprocity to gifts.
From Another Life:
Interactions between Organizations and Networks in Common-Pool Resource Governance, with Arun Agrawal, Dan Brown, Rick Riolo and Derek Robinson, Environmental Science & Policy, Volume 25, January 2013, Pages 138–146
Preservation or degradation? Communal management and ecological change in a southeast Michigan forest, with Fred Nelson, Elisa Collins, Alain Frechette, Cynthia Koenig, Mosé Jones-Yellin, Brihannala Morgan, Gita Ramsay, and Claudia Rodriguez, Biodiversity and Conservation, October 2008, Volume 17, Issue 11, pp 2757-2772
Personal:
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