Research

Abstract: This paper investigates the tragedy of ill-informed leadership in a setting where both leaders and followers lack certainty about the returns from a public good. In this context, leaders may unknowingly drive followers to form incorrect beliefs about the state of the world, ultimately leading them to make decisions that are to their disadvantage. Using a laboratory experiment, we show that leaders need not hold perfect information about the state of the world to be influential. When leaders are ill-informed, this influence takes a tragic turn, as leaders who (rationally) follow their information end up misleading followers and generating substantial welfare losses. Specifically, having a misleading leader is associated with a reduction in gains from contributions approximately twice as large as the reduction from halving the return from the public good. Our results underscore the significance of having well-informed leaders.

Abstract: This review examines how virtual embodiment interventions can inform economic research on inequality across social groups. In these interventions, widely used in psychology and related disciplines, virtual reality is used to embody individuals in virtual bodies whose appearance (skin tone, gender, age, etc.) can be experimentally manipulated to represent a member of a distinct social group. We propose a simple framework for understanding how outgroup embodiment may affect prejudice- and identity-related outcomes through other-regarding preferences, beliefs about the represented group, and beliefs about the self. We synthesize the existing literature, provide a practical guide to designing such interventions, and discuss the methodological trade-offs involved in their implementation. The review makes a two-way contribution: embodiment interventions offer economists a promising tool to study the socio-cognitive foundations of inequality, while an economic framework provides a path toward clarifying whether “changing bodies” can change not only minds but also behavior.

Abstract: Men tend to select into leadership positions more frequently than women. We conduct a lab experiment to examine how confidence contributes to this phenomenon. Our design allows us to measure several dimensions of confidence and correlate them with willingness to lead in different leadership contexts, while observing actual ability. For both men and women, we find that confidence explains willingness to lead to a larger extent when the leader’s role is to advise followers than when it is to take decisions on their behalf. This suggests that interventions aimed at boosting women's confidence might be more effective in increasing their representation in the former type of leadership roles.