Research

We study consumer decision-making at grocery stores. Using scanner data, survey data, and a large field experiment in partnership with a renowned supermarket chain in Colombia, we analyze an intervention aimed at simplifying consumers’ search process by reducing price information frictions. Our goal is to assess the effects of such intervention on consumers’ product searches, purchases, and welfare. We also intend to investigate supply-side responses to the intervention. 

Political trust is foundational to democratic legitimacy, representative governance, and the provision of effective public policy. Various shocks can influence this trust, steering countries onto positive or negative trajectories. This study examines whether natural disasters can impact general political trust and if disaster relief efforts can mitigate these effects. We investigate the relationships between disaster, trust, and aid using novel survey data collected before and after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Mexico City in September 2017. Our findings reveal that the disaster resulted in an 11\% decrease in general political trust. Additionally, we demonstrate that geographical proximity to disaster relief efforts may counterbalance this decline in trust. This study contributes to the scholarship on the politics of disasters and offers policy implications, highlighting the role of disaster assistance in potentially restoring general political trust after a disaster.

Previous literature has explored the impact of financial incentives on public sector performance, but studies on the role of behavioral nudges, particularly in civil servants' adherence to secondary tasks like freedom-of-information (FOI) requests, are limited. These tasks, though not directly linked to performance evaluations, are vital for government transparency. Our field experiment assessed the efficacy of behavioral nudges in enhancing civil servants' response rate and timeliness to FOI requests. Results indicate that, while these nudges did not significantly alter the overall compliance rate, they notably improved response timing. Specifically, the rate of responses precisely meeting the FOI law's final deadline surged by 128% in the treatment group post-intervention. This finding underscores the potential of nudges in influencing civil servants' performance on both primary and secondary government-relevant tasks.

We conducted an audit experiment to examine whether street vendors in Bogotá (Colombia) exert price discrimination based on buyers’ attributes, such as gender and nationality, and based on product characteristics. We exploited the seasonal demand for album stickers related to the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018. In our within-subjects design, experimenters carried out in-person audits and quoted a pre-determined list of missing stickers. They interacted with 59 sticker vendors located in five geographic clusters and collected 287 vendor–buyer interactions. We find that prices quoted to foreign buyers are higher than prices quoted to Colombian buyers. By contrast, we do neither find evidence supporting direct gender-based discrimination nor that vendors charge a higher price per sticker when the list of missing stickers is shorter. We complement the study with a qualitative analysis based on interviews that reveal vendors’ pricing strategies, their awareness of price discrimination, and the trade of counterfeits. The qualitative results suggest that price discrimination appears to be unconscious.