Working Papers

Paternalistic Discrimination

with Nina Buchmann and Colin Sullivan

Revise and Resubmit, Econometrica

We combine two field experiments in Bangladesh with a structural labor model to identify paternalistic discrimination, the differential treatment of two groups to protect one group, even against its will, from harmful or unpleasant situations. We observe hiring and application decisions for a night-shift job that provides worker transport at the end of the shift. In the first experiment, we use information about the transport to vary employers' perceptions of job costs to female workers while holding taste-based and statistical discrimination constant: Not informing employers about the transport decreases demand for female labor by 21%. Employers respond more to transport information than cash payments to female workers that enable workers to purchase transport themselves. In the second experiment, not informing applicants about the transport reduces female labor supply by 15%. In structural simulations, paternalistic discrimination has a larger effect on gender employment and wage gaps than taste-based and statistical discrimination.

Media: IDEAS FOR INDIA, VoxDev, Econimate

Why Are Fewer Grocery Shoppers Buying Meat? Declining Grocery Sales, Prices, and Cultural Change

with Zach Freitas-Groff and Trevor Woolley

Kilts Center at Chicago Booth Marketing Data Center Paper
Revise and Resubmit, European Economic Review

The past decades have seen a number of new policies and food technology businesses concerned with alleviating animal welfare or environmental impacts of animal agriculture. We study whether there is evidence that consumer behavior is changing in parallel by examining real grocery purchases matched with machine-scanned label data. We find that meat consumption has been at its highest in recent years, consistent with prior observations, but we offer the first observational evidence that a growing share of the population is purchasing fewer or no meat items and other animal products. While some of this trend can be explained by changes in the volume of grocery purchases, we suggest that media and generational turnover are further driving this trend. We finally discuss the plausible effects of meat alternatives, finding that they cannot have been a primary driver of this trend and have an unclear effect on meat and animal product consumption.

Media: Vox

Work in Progress

The Impact of Salary Ranges with Adrian Blattner and Mariana Guido

Flexibility through Delay with Hunt Allcott, Matthew Gentzkow, Peter Maxted, and Lena Song

Effort Misoptimization with Germán Reyes and Jason Somerville