Voting to Tell Others [Final Version: Sep 2016]

Abstract: Why do people vote? We design a field experiment to estimate a model of voting `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. 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. The experimental results indicate significant social image concerns. For the 2010 Congressional election, we estimate a value of voting ‘to tell others’ of about $15, contributing 2 percentage points to turnout. Lastly, we evaluate a get-out-the-vote intervention in which we tell potential voters that we will ask if they voted.

[online appendix]  [data and code]

Status Goods: Experimental Evidence from Platinum Credit Cards  [New: Dec 2017 version]

(with Leonardo Bursztyn, Bruno Ferman, Stefano Fiorin and Martin Kanz) 

Abstract: This paper provides novel field-experimental evidence on status goods. We work with an Indonesian bank that markets platinum credit cards to high-income customers. In a first experiment, we show that demand for the platinum card greatly exceeds demand for a nondescript control product with identical benefits, suggesting demand for the pure status aspect of the card. Transaction data reveal that platinum cards are more likely to be used in social contexts, implying social image motivations. Combining price variation with information on the use of the card sheds light on the magnitude of the demand for social status. In a second experiment, we provide evidence of positional externalities from the consumption of these status goods.  The final experiment shows that increasing self-esteem causally reduces demand for status goods. We infer that part of the demand for status is psychological in nature, and that social image is a substitute for self image.

 [Online Appendix] [Data and Code] [AEA Pre-Registration] 

Familiarity Does Not Breed Contempt: Diversity, Discrimination and Generosity in Delhi Schools

Forthcoming, American Economic Review

[Final Version: May 2018]

Abstract: I exploit a natural experiment in Indian schools to study how being integrated with poor students affects the social behaviors and academic outcomes of rich students. Using administrative data, lab and field experiments to measure outcomes, I find that having poor classmates makes rich students (i) more prosocial, generous and egalitarian; and (ii) less likely to discriminate against poor students, and more willing to socialize with them. These effects are driven by personal interactions between rich and poor students. In contrast, I find mixed but overall modest impacts on rich students' academic achievement. 

​[online appendix]

Estimating Social Preferences and Gift Exchange at Work [New Version: June 2016]

(with Stefano DellaVigna, John List and Ulrike Malmendier)

Abstract: We design a model-based field experiment to estimate the nature and magnitude of workers' social  references towards their employers. We hire 446 workers for a one-time task. Within worker, we vary (i) piece rates; (ii) whether the work has payoffs only for the worker, or also for the employer; and (iii) the return to the employer. We then introduce a surprise increase or decrease in pay (`gifts') from the employer. We find that workers have substantial baseline social preferences towards their employers, even in the absence of repeated-game incentives. Consistent with models of warm glow or social norms, but not of pure altruism, workers exert substantially more effort when their work is consequential to their employer, but are insensitive to the precise return to the employer. Turning to reciprocity, we find little evidence of a response to unexpected positive (or negative) gifts from the employer. Our structural estimates of the social preferences suggest that, if anything, positive reciprocity in response to monetary `gifts' may be larger than negative reciprocity. We revisit the results of previous field experiments on gift exchange using our model and derive a one-parameter expression for the implied reciprocity in these experiments.

[AEA Pre-Registration] Note: This includes a full pre-registration of the structural model.