Research

Paternalistic Persuasion (updated, 06/2025) [pdf]

Paternalistic experts ("Advisors") often seek to make decision-makers ("Choosers") better off by recommending ways for them to change their behavior. Choosers, however, are often reluctant to make behavioral changes. To successfully persuade a Chooser to change their behavior, an Advisor should therefore account for this reluctance when sending recommendations. In a setting where Choosers are wary of Advisors’ incentives, I experimentally investigate whether Advisors send recommendations that account for this wariness, and why they may fail to do so. I find that nearly 80% of Advisors send sub-optimal recommendations. Most of these Advisors send recommendations that would only be optimal if Choosers were not wary. I show, however, that prompting Advisors to think about Choosers’ likely response to a recommended change is an effective way to correct this mistake. This suggests that the mistake stems from a failure to focus on recommending actions that are both welfare-improving and appealing to Choosers.

Gender Differences in Job Application Strategies: An Experimental Investigation (with Annabel Thornton) (new draft coming soon) 

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.