Research
Research
My main research interests are Behavioral and Experimental Economics. I am interested on assessing the factors that affect individuals' choices, including policy interventions.
I proposed a mechanism for implementing assisted online surveys and testing interviewer bias. I also developed a model to test for assymetric consumer responses to prices across different store formats, which I applied to provide useful insights into consumers’ behavior in smaller convenience retailers. In another project, I proposed an experimental mechanism to understand how individuals react to ambiguous and risky information, and I am interested in applying it in the context of the sweeteners market.
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Research Background
My master thesis was about Hispanics’ opinions towards immigration reform proposals based on evidence from a survey and choice experiments. While pursuing my master’s degree, I also explored the role of economic factors on internal migration in China using macroeconomic data. This research topic emerged during a study abroad program in China, after I observed rural workers traveling across China to fill jobs in cities.
During my first two years in the Ph.D. program while I was exploring research ideas for my dissertation, I had the opportunity to work in different fields. I designed auctions and a survey to elicit consumer value for attribute-related information of food. In addition, I explored the development of games and experiments to estimate the non-use value of farmers for crop diversity in the Andes. Later, I worked with another graduate student to improve the realism of experimental auctions in a simple and inexpensive manner by simulating real market experiences.
For my dissertation I evaluated whether there is an improvement of consumer food choice when NuVal shelf nutritional labels are implemented in the store. Taking advantage of a store adopting the NuVal labels, I test diet improvements analyzing consumer purchasing data. This research allows a better understanding of the impact of developing a standard nutritional symbol that provides concise and simple nutritional information, labeling alternative that is currently under revision by the FDA. Overall, this research provides insights into policy forming.
Along with my dissertation research, I worked with professor Zhen and researchers from Singapore on applying an on-line survey to understand the shoppers use of Front-of-Package labels including shelf nutrition labels. In addition, I have been working with my co-author, Ph.D. student at Purdue University on the impact of Biofuel production on land distributions.
Future Research
I view some of the research work I have conducted such as a paper about non-market valuation of water as works in progress that I intend to improve and submit for publication within the next six months.
In the immediate future I plan to conduct the surveys and experiments to elicit consumers’ value for attributed-related information of foods. I am enthusiastic to continue working on research projects related to experimental auctions and choice experiments that I have developed as a Ph.D. student under the direction of Dr. Colson. In addition, I plan to test some hypothesis that have emerged as a result of my dissertation results using empirical and experimental data. For instance, I want to assess whether the overall nutritional quality of the consumer basket filled at the store improves and whether there are substitution effects across different product categories because of the nutritional labels.
I would like to pursue the research project on the farmers’ value for crop diversity, idea that emerged while I was taking the development economics class. The contacts I made in Ecuador while I was exploring to conduct the topic will be important support to be able to carry out the project.
To summarize, at this point in my career, my interests are in consumer behavior applied to the field of food economics. In the immediate future I would like to combine experiments and empirical data to explain peoples’ choices. In the long term I see myself working on increasing my expertise in these areas by developing economic experiments. I am also interested in extending the application of economic experiments to development economics to improve our understanding of farmers’ decisions in the developing world. Finally, there are also plans with my co-author at Purdue to collaborate analyzing the welfare impact of trade agreements.