Alexia Delfino - Research papers

Commerce requires trust, but trust is difficult when one group can expropriate another using violence or social power. We present a model of entrepreneurship that predicts female businesses will interact with men only when external authorities enforce contracts fairly, and when social norms empower female bargaining. The model’s predictions are supported in cross-national data and with a new census of Zambian manufacturers. In Zambia, female entrepreneurs collaborate less, learn less from fellow entrepreneurs, earn less, and segregate into low-return industries with more women. By experimentally inducing variation in institutional quality in an adapted investment game, we find that unbiased adjudication reduces the gender gap in trust and economic activity, resulting in economic benefits for both men and women.

Learning to See the World’s Opportunities: Memory, Mental Experiencing and the Economic Lives of the Vulnerable

with N. Ashraf (LSE), G. Bryan (LSE), E. Holmes (Uppsala), L. Iacovone (WB), C. Meyer (Oxford) and A. Pople (WB)

CEPR Discussion Paper DP19879

Many of the world's poor have experienced trauma. We argue that memories of this trauma interfere with the process of future simulation, diminishing the ability to see how actions today can improve outcomes tomorrow. We introduce guided mental experiencing (GME) - an intervention in which participants mentally simulate pathways between their actions and desired economic outcomes - as a response, and study GME's impact in two RCTs. In a population of Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia, GME increases the ability of refugees to see a positive future, increases their intent to stay in Ethiopia, increases labor force participation and improves self-reported welfare. In a population that has experienced violence and poverty in Colombia, a traditional entrepreneurial training program reduces the ability to imagine a future in business and worsens economic outcomes. Integrating GME into entrepreneurial training restores future thinking and removes these negative economic effects. The largest gains accrue to the most traumatized participants in our samples.

Funding: IPA P&R Exploratory Grant, IGA-Rockefeller Research and Impact Fund, J-PAL PPE, IPA P&R, J-PAL GEA

Value Misalignment at the Workplace

with M. Espinosa (Bocconi)

Coverage: VoxTalks (CEPR)

CEPR Discussion Paper DP19929

Large organizations often require employees to collaborate with others who may see the world differently. Yet, little is known about whether misalignment in personal values with managers or colleagues affects performance. Using survey and administrative data from a world-leading bank, we find that employees who don’t share their manager’s values perform worse, with a stronger effect in objective productivity measures than subjective evaluations. This result is not explained by diversity in demographics or misalignment with organizational values. The productivity loss going from the least to the most misaligned worker is nearly four times greater than the impact of having a manager of a different gender. Differences in values with teammates do not have similar performance consequences. We provide evidence consistent with a decline in both employee-led communication and morale when workers have values different from those of their managers. Our findings reveal the important but often-overlooked influence of diversity in personal values on organizational performance.

Unwilling to reskill? Evidence from a survey experiment with Italian jobseekers

with R. Sadun (HBS), S. Inferrera (Queen Mary), A. Garnero (OECD) and M. Leonardi (Statale di Milano)

We study demand-side barriers preventing jobseekers from pursuing reskilling in high-demand occupations. By means of a discrete choice experiment, we quantify the demand for reskilling among Italian jobseekers in two high-demand occupations in IT and constructions, and investigate its main determinants. Results indicate that there is substantial heterogeneity in the intention to reskill across various jobseeker groups, but also within-group across different types of training programs. Estimates of the willingness to pay for different training features indicate that participants value positively a higher job-finding rate post-training and positively value reskilling in IT, but would need to be compensated for engaging in reskilling in construction. Age, occupational identity, and beliefs regarding monetary and social status returns in high-demand occupations are primary factors influencing reskilling intentions. We implement two different types of policy experiments to understand how to stimulate interest in reskilling. First, we find that a light-touch randomised informational treatment is effective in increasing both self-reported interest and real-life reskilling engagement. Second, policy simulations show that unconditional training subsidies may not lead to higher take-up of reskilling.

Research in progress

Beyond bonuses: the incentive effect of a prosocial initiative on bankers (analysis)

with N. Ashraf (LSE), O. Bandiera (LSE) and M. Fossi (LSE)

Encouraging hands-on job experimentation among teenagers: evidence from Switzerland (data collection)

with A. Brenoe (UZH), C. Schilter (Bern) and S. Wolter (Bern)

Friendly workplaces for working mothers: Experimental evidence on encouraging the creation of lactation rooms in Kenya (data collection)

with S. Fiorin (Bocconi)

Funding: J-PAL GEA, Weiss Fund, LEAP

Gender and the demand and supply of advice in teams (analysis)

with Shan Aman-Rana (University of Virginia) and Shamyla Chaudry (Lahore School of Economics)

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