Gautam Rao
I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics at Harvard University, a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and a faculty affiliate at the The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL). Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard, I was a post-doctoral researcher at Microsoft Research's New England Lab in Cambridge, MA from July 2014-June 2015. I graduated from UC Berkeley with a PhD in Economics in 2014.
My research seeks to bring insights from psychology to bear on topics in economics, particularly topics relevant to developing countries. Recent projects include studying how a demand for social status affects consumption decision in Indonesia, how mixing rich and poor students in schools in India affects social preferences and behaviors, how citizens in the United States are motivated to vote by social image concerns, and how innovative financial contracts can help patients with hypertension overcome their self-control problems in rural India.
Contact:
Department of Economics Littauer Center M-30, Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138 U.S.A.
[Curriculum Vitae][Updated September 2016]
|
Office Hours (Students Only): In the Fall, office hours are by appointment, since I am traveling a great deal. Email me to set something up. In the spring, I will return to online signups.
|
|
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
(with Stefano DellaVigna, John List and Ulrike Malmendier)
Forthcoming, Review of Economic Studies 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.
Working Papers:[July 2015] Abstract: I exploit a natural experiment in India to identify ho[w 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. (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.
Work in Progress:
Status Goods: Experimental Evidence from Platinum Credit Cards in Indonesia(available upon request)(with Leonardo Bursztyn, Bruno Ferman, Stefano Fiorin and Martin Kanz)
Abstract: Economists have long hypothesized that social status considerations are a powerful driver of consumption choices (Veblen 1899). But empirically identifying status goods is difficult, since status components of consumption are confounded by unobserved instrumental utility. We work with a large bank in Indonesia to market their widely-recognized platinum credit cards, typically restricted to high-income customers, to a marginally eligible population of customers. In a control group, customers are offered all the financial services and benefits of the platinum card, but as an included upgrade on their existing nondescript credit card. In two treatment groups, customers are instead offered the platinum card itself. We find that demand for the platinum card is substantially higher than demand for the instrumental benefits, providing evidence of the importance of image considerations. We provide evidence that the demand for the platinum card appears to be driven substantially by social image concerns, rather than self image or identity. We find that it is the less-rich (middle-class) individuals in the sample who show a demand for the social image aspect of the platinum card, rather than the very rich. An analysis of the utilization of the credit cards reveals that platinum card holders are causally more likely to use the card in social situations such as restaurants, bars and clubs, where the card may be visible to others. In contrast, there are no effects on more private uses of the card, such as online purchases. Finally, we provide evidence of "fashion cycles" in the marketing of elite credit cards, consistent with models of status goods (Pesendorfer 1995). [AEA Pre-Registration]
Self-Control and Chronic Illness: Evidence from Commitment Contracts for Doctor Visits
(available upon request)
(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 naiveté, and full naiveté) affect how agents are predicted to use, under-use or misuse different types of commitment contracts. We propose a commitment contract that bundles strong commitment with price discounts, and has the potential to benefit not just sophisticated present biased agents, but also naifs and partial naifs. Working with a high quality health care provider, we diagnose and provide and intensive information treatment to patients with hypertension. We then randomize the types of commitment contracts and price discounts offered to the patients to incent future preventive visits to the doctor. Preliminary results indicate moderate takeup of commitment contracts with high rates of failure to follow through on the committed doctor visits. Failure rates are higher when the contracts are self-designed (i.e. where the commitment amounts are chosen by the individuals themselves), consistent with partial naiveté about present bias. Bundling discounts with commitments increases takeup, as expected, and results in modest reductions in failures of commitment. Overall, the commitment contracts fail to increase attendance, and offering commitment contracts has ambiguous and plausibly negative effects on welfare. [AEA Pre-Registration] Included theoretical model and (reduced form) pre-analysis plan
The Effect of Research Information on Policy Making: Evidence from Brazil(with Jonas Hjort and Diana Moreira) Bureaucrat Value Added: The Effect of Individual Bureaucrats on Local Economic Outcomes in India(with Jonas Hjort and Elizabeth Santorella) The Economic and Behavioral Effects of Poor Sleep Among the Urban Poor(with Frank Schilback and Heather Schofield)
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:
|
|
|
