Gender Differences in Post-Award Recognition: Evidence from Hollywood

I examine whether being nominated for major awards is associated with different labour market activity and recognition depending on minority status. I exploit the timing of Academy Award nominations since 1927 and focus on women as an underrepresented group to estimate the effect of a nomination by gender using both a staggered triple difference-in-differences approach, and a synthetic difference-in-differences approach. While a nomination leads to mixed outcomes for women in terms of number of projects, lead roles and likelihood of future nominations, men experience more and larger increases. Exploring mechanisms, I show that gaps are reduced when I only consider artists with more than one nomination, suggesting that uncertainty around the nomination signal plays a role. I also show that men expand collaborations with other nominees and pursue more “Oscar-bait” projects, suggesting network effects as another mechanism. I rule out childbearing, differences in project quality and representation shocks as alternative explanations.

Working Paper

Conflict and Productivity: Evidence from the Russia-Ukraine War.

I examine the effects of conflict on individual productivity by analyzing the performance of Ukrainian chess players after the start of the Russian invasion in 2022. Using a Diff-in-Diff strategy, I find that Ukrainian players win less matches after the invasion, even after 2 years. This effect is stronger when they are playing in person against Russian and Belarusians opponents, when they live closer to the front and when tournaments have more prestige, suggesting that the effect is associated with a decline in performance from Ukrainian players. I discard alternative explanations such as players playing less games after the conflict, or Russian players becoming better.

Working Paper: SSRN