Research

Strategic Communication under Perceived Misalignment of Interests [pdf] (previously circulated as "Paternalistic Persuasion")

I experimentally study why Senders fail to communicate strategically when they know their incentives align with a Receiver's, but the Receiver is uncertain about this alignment. I develop a cheap talk model that characterizes the Sender's optimal communication strategy in this environment. I find that most Senders communicate suboptimally, often using a strategy that would only be optimal if Receivers were not wary of Senders' incentives. Unlike in communication games with misaligned incentives, incorrect beliefs about the Receiver’s strategy provide at best a weak explanation for Senders' mistake. Instead, the mistake stems primarily from a failure of contingent thinking, which can be mitigated by prompting Senders to consider how Receivers respond. These findings point to an under-appreciated source of strategic reasoning errors, which may arise even when incentives are aligned and beliefs about others' strategies are correct.

Gender Differences in Job Application Strategies: An Experimental Investigation (with Annabel Thornton) [available upon request] 

Using a lab experiment, we study how beliefs about a job’s applicant pool influence application behaviour, with a focus on gender differences. We design a job application game where group members are either ranked randomly or based on test performance. Without knowing their rank, participants choose from three “jobs” with different hiring rules and pay. We find most participants consider the competitiveness of a job when applying, and that their willingness to apply decreases in the perceived competitiveness of its applicant pool. Gender differences in beliefs about a job’s competitiveness generate different application behaviours.

Preference Aggregation in Social Choice Under Risk (updated, 04/2025) [pdf]

Many types of group leaders make "social choices": choices that influence both their own and others' welfare. This paper investigates whether and when decision-makers accommodate preferences that differ from their own when making social choices. I introduce an experimental framework that can answer these questions in two-person social choice problems, and apply it to study social choice under risk. I find that over one-third of decision-makers are willing to aggregate (i.e., accommodate) a recipient's risk preferences. These decision-makers aggregate wide ranges of preferences, but tend to favour preferences that are similar to their own. Additional results suggest that recipients' preferences carry the greatest weight when the decision-maker's own preferences are incomplete. 

Domain-Dependent Attribution Errors (with Ruchi Avtar)