The project builds on early field work in India during my Master’s program, where I, together with Janina Steinert and Sebastian Vollmer, found that household-based interventions vary substantially in their effectiveness based on the accuracy of spouses’ assumptions about each others’ behaviors. Expanding on these insights, Vasanthi and I explore how different norms related to gender are perceived by household members, to what extent these perceptions are accurate, and how they affect household members’ actual behaviors. We are specifically examining gender norms and household behaviors in terms of mobility, labor market participation, and preferential treatment of children by sex. The project is funded by my Joachim-Herz Add-on Fellowship.
Spousal Trust Alignment and Intra-Household Cooperation [Submitted]
(with Janina Isabel Steinert and Sebastian Vollmer)
CRC-PEG Discussion Papers, No. 279
Conferences and Workshops: EUDN 2023, Field Days 2023, AFE 2023, GDE 2022, DENeB 2022, NCDC 2021, MBEES 2021, GlaD 2021
Abstract: We implement a binary trust game between 211 married couples from low-income households in urban India. In a separate experiment, these spouses randomly received either only a joint savings device (control) or, additionally, a device for individual usage (treatment). Combining data from both experiments, we examine how the impact of the strategically usable savings device varies by spouses’ trust and trustworthiness, particularly, by their alignment. We find that wives also receiving the individual device reported significantly higher savings only when spouses’ decisions in the trust game were aligned. When decisions were misaligned, the coefficient turned negative. The results suggest that, under positive alignment (wives justifiably trusting their husbands), higher savings were achieved through wives’ increased involvement in household decisions. Conversely, in couples where wives (justifiably) mistrust their husbands, they used the private device to hide money to realize higher savings. Our findings encourage household-based interventions to consider spouses’ (mis)perceptions about intra-household cooperation.
Gender Norm Perceptions and Parental Son Preference [Data analysis ongoing]
(with Vasanthi S. Pillai)
Conferences and Workshops: IHEA 2025
Household and Community Risk Perceptions around Women's Public Safety [Data analysis ongoing]
(with Vasanthi S. Pillai)
Conferences and Workshops: AFE 2024, ECHO Seminar Series @RHUL 2025
The project revisits social preferences as determinants of individual cooperation in collective action and distribution problems in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. For instance, we examine whether experimentally measured inequality aversion matters for citizen’s support of vaccine donating/hoarding policies by HICs at a time of global vaccine scarcity. The project is funded by the EU Horizon 2020 PERISCOPE program.
Inequality aversion and international distribution preferences: The case of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout [Submitted]
(with Janina Isabel Steinert and Tim Buethe)
MPPE working paper, No. 07/2025
Conferences and Workshops: APSA 2025*, RHUL PhD Conference, EuHEA 2024, DGGÖ Conference 2024, BSE Summer Forum 2023, THEEM 2023
Abstract: This paper examines how inequality aversion shapes public support of international redistributive policies. We investigate this question in the context of the global allocation of vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic, using online survey data from incentivized behavioral games and a discrete choice experiment conducted with German citizens in April 2021 (N=2,402). We distinguish between aversion to advantageous inequality (others worse off, the ’guilt’ parameter) and aversion to disadvantageous inequality (others better off, the ’envy’ parameter). These two forms of inequality aversion shape German citizens’ attitudes towards the cross-country allocation of resources in distinct ways: While higher levels of the guilt parameter significantly increase respondents’ likelihood to prioritize an equitable vaccine allocation, the envy parameter is associated with lower support thereof. These findings suggest that inequality aversion matters for citizens’ support of redistribution beyond the national level and emphasize that distinguishing between both forms of inequality aversion is crucial.
Compliance in the public versus the private realm: Economic preferences, institutional trust and Covid‐19 health behaviors
(with Janina Isabel Steinert and Tim Buethe)
Health Economics, 2024, 33(5), 1055-1119.
Abstract: To what extent do economic preferences and institutional trust predict compliance with physical distancing rules during the Covid-19 pandemic? We reexamine this question by introducing the theoretical and empirical distinction between individual health behaviors in the public and in the private domain (e.g., keeping a distance from strangers vs. abstaining from private gatherings with friends). Using structural equation modeling to analyze survey data from Germany's second wave of the pandemic (N = 3350), we reveal the following major differences between compliance in both domains: Social preferences, especially (positive) reciprocity, play an essential role in predicting compliance in the public domain but are barely relevant in the private domain. Conversely, individuals' degree of trust in the national government matters predominantly for increasing compliance in the private domain. The clearly strongest predictor in this domain is the perception pandemic-related threats. Our findings encourage tailoring communication strategies to either domain-specific circumstances or factors common across domains. Tailored communication may also help promote compliance with other health-related regulatory policies beyond Covid-19.