Working Papers
We study how incarceration experience shapes preferences for criminal justice policies. In collaboration with a newly opened prison, we conducted a randomized field experiment that o!ered citizens the opportunity to experience up to two days of incarceration, closely replicating the real-life journey of inmates. Providing citizens with a chance to gain firsthand incarceration leads to a significant shift in punitive attitudes, with participants becoming less supportive of harsh criminal justice policies and donating more money to organizations advocating more moderate justice policies. Although individuals overestimated the wellbeing of actual prisoners, the intervention did not alter these beliefs. This suggests that the observed changes in policy preferences are driven more by personal experience than by revised beliefs about the burden of confinement. By randomizing institutional exposure outside the laboratory, our study highlights the causal role of personal experience in the formation of policy preferences.
Work in Progress
Status: Field experiment in progress
Status: Multi-year field experiment in progress
Misinformation, Experience and the Demand for Legal Cannabis, with Alain Cohn, Andreas Beerli, Aljosha Henkel & Michel Maréchal.
Status: Multi-year field experiment in progress
The Influence of Distribution Channels on the Consumption of Cannabis for Recreational Purposes, with Alain Cohn, Andreas Beerli, Aljosha Henkel & Michel Maréchal.
Status: Multi-year field experiment in progress
Crossing the Threshold: The Impact of QUIMS, with Justus Bamert.
Status: Data acquisition and linkage are scheduled for summer 2026