Research
Publications and Requests for Revision
With Katherine B Coffman and Keith Marzilli Ericson
Resubmitted at Journal of Political Economy: Microeconomics
Economics research has largely overlooked non-binary individuals. We provide data on many of their economically-important beliefs and preferences.
"Liquidity for Teachers: Evidence from Teach For America and LinkedIn"
Economics of Education Review, December 2023, 97.
With John J Conlon, Clayton R Featherstone, Judd B Kessler, and Jessica Mixon
Tracking TFA admits from the experiment in "Does Liquidity Affect Job Choice" (via TFA administrative data, survey data, as well as novel data pulled by our team from social media), we show a few hundred dollars in upfront cash-on-hand can be the difference of whether someone is a teacher one, two, or three years into the future.
“Pathways of Persuasion” (ungated, unformatted version)
Games and Economic Behavior, November 2020, 124: 239-253.
With Paul Niehaus
A broad experimental investigation of what is persuasive, and why, focusing in particular on appeals to perceived self-interest and other-regard.
"Expectations Do not Affect Punishment" (ungated, unformatted version)
Journal of the Economic Science Association, December 2019, 5(2): 182-196
Across many attempts, we find no experimental support for expectations per se affecting punishment.
“Liquidity Affects Job Choice: Evidence from Teach For America”
The Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 2019, 134(4): 2203-2236.
With John J Conlon, Clayton R Featherstone, and Judd B Kessler
In a large field experiment with Teach for America, a few hundred dollars of cash-on-hand can be the difference for whether some recent college graduates become teachers.
Online Appendix; AEA registration; Finalist for Exeter Prize
“Moral Perceptions of Advised Actions” (unformatted free version)
Management Science, August 2019, 65(8): 3449-3947.
We present experimental evidence suggesting an organization can avoid blame for an unpopular action by hiring someone to advise them to do it.
Management Science, October 2017, 63(10): 3168 - 3186.
With Katherine Coffman and Keith M Marzilli-Ericson
Using a survey technique that veils individual responses, we demonstrate widely-used measures of the LGBT population and anti-gay sentiment are misestimated, likely substantially.
“A Proposal for Promoting and Incentivizing Replications”
American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, May 2017, 107(5): 41-45.
With Muriel Niederle and Alistair J Wilson
We propose that top journals publish short "replication reports", and that editors enforce a norm of citing replication work alongside the original thus providing incentives for replications to both authors and journals.
“Assessing the Rate of Replications in Economics”
American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, May 2017, 107(5): 27-31.
With James Berry, Rania Gihleb, Douglas Hanley, and Alistair J Wilson
We assess the rate of replication for empirical papers in the 2010 American Economic Review, finding 29 percent have one or more replication attempt, and 60 percent have either a replication, robustness test, or an extension.
“Can Social Information Affect What Job You Choose and Keep?”
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2017, 9(1): 96-117.
With Clayton R Featherstone and Judd B Kessler
We show that a subtle provision of social information, i.e. 84 percent of those admitted joined TFA last year, can influence whether to take (and keep) a job as a public school teacher.
“Intermediaries in Fundraising Inhibit Quality-Driven Charitable Donations”
Economic Inquiry, January 2017, 55(1): 409-424.
Having charitable funds raised by an intermediary, e.g. a workplace fundraiser or a walk-for-a-cure event, can make donors insensitive to charity quality.
“Pre-Analysis Plans Have Limited Upside especially where Replications are Feasible”
Journal of Economic Perspectives, July 2015, 29(3): 81-98.
With Muriel Niederle
How and when do pre-analysis plans, hypothesis registries, and replications help us know what we know and what we don’t?
“The Schooling Decision: Family Preferences, Intergenerational Conflict, and Moral Hazard in the Brazilian Favelas”
Journal of Political Economy, June 2012, 120(3): 359-397. (Lead article)
With Leonardo Bursztyn
We show very poor parents in urban Brazil strongly prefer their adolescent children be in school but cannot enforce this due to a lack of monitoring of their children’s behavior.
(Web Appendix), (Data, do file, and read me),
CNN op-ed on parental involvement in schooling, with Todd Rogers and Peter Bergman
“Intermediation Reduces Punishment (and Reward)”
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 3(November 2011): 77-106.
In a series of laboratory experiments, third party punishment for keeping money at the expense of a poorer player is shown to decrease when the selfishness is done through an intermediary; we find similar results for good behavior and rewards.
Works in progress
“A Model of Information Nudges” (Draft coming Monday!)
With Clayton Featherstone and Judd Kessler
We propose a model that predicts the direction and size of treatment effects for information-provision experiments. The main predictions are corroborated by a meta-analysis of the literature. Most surprisingly: Expect negative treatment effects when baseline rates are low.
"Trying to Focus: Assessing the Ability to Regulate Mind-Wandering"
Under review
With Hannu Kivimaki and Ian Krajbich
Why are we not better at keeping our minds on task? We show motivation per se is not enough. However, motivations intrinsic to the task (e.g. the task is engaging) or salient motivations (e.g. those made clear and simple) are meaningfully effective.
"Simple Lab Measures Have High External Validity"
With Muriel Niederle and Jason Somerville
Proposal accepted at The Annual Review of Economics
“Informing Students about Schooling: An At-Scale Experiment in the Dominican Republic”
With James Berry, Daniel Morales, and Christopher Neilson
We conduct an at-scale evaluation of interventions that present accurate, clear information – largely through in-class videos – on the potential benefits and costs of schooling to almost 200,000 7th–12th grade students in the Dominican Republic.
“What Should She Do? And Now What Should You Do?"
With Emine Tasci
In a registered report, we propose a simple practical intervention for decreasing gender gaps in important contexts: Choosing for another before choosing for oneself.
"Conspiracy Beliefs and Self-Image"
With Collin B Raymond
We propose an explanation of conspiracy belief adoption that organizes the existing literature and expands our understanding. At its core, the model hypothesizes that a desire to move up, or cement one's status in, the social hierarchy drives conspiracy ideation. We corroborate the model with correlates in the extant literature as well as a novel experiment.
"Work-Leisure Cue Interference"
(Ignite Grant from Boston College)
Our minds take cues from the environment to know what the set of potential tasks are. If the cues are associated with interfering tasks, say work and fun, one’s mind will have a harder time staying on task. This set of experiments aims to pin down what these cues are – visual, geographic, temporal – and how to manage them to increase ability to stay on task, whether work or play.
Book chapters
"How to Run Replicable Experiments" in Handbook of Experimental Methods, Elsevier
with Anna Dreber Almenberg
“Intermediation and Diffusion of Responsibility in Negotiation: A Case of Bounded Ethicality” in Handbook of Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, Oxford Press
with Neeru Paharia and Max Bazerman