Research
Non-academic writing
The economics of refugee resettlement
Honourable Mention in the Women in Economics Network Credible Economist writing competition 2022.
Publications
Development and Validation of a Routine Session-by-Session Experience Measure for Youth Mental Health Services: My Youth Mental Health Session Experience (MySE)
(with Debra Rickwood and Nic Telford)
Does enjoyment focus prevent proenvironmental behaviour?
(with Anna Zinn, Bettina Grün and Sara Dolnicar)
Pro-environmental behaviour occurs less frequently on vacation, but it is not clear why. We hypothesise that people have an enjoyment-focus-related threshold for displaying pro-environmental behaviours. According to this hypothesis, people display pro-environmental behaviour in low-enjoyment-focus contexts (e.g., at home), but not in high-enjoyment-focus contexts (e.g., on vacation). We test whether a threshold exists after which enjoyment focus overrides the willingness to act with the environment in mind. Results show that this is not the case. Contrary to the currently dominant paradigm, enjoyment focus does not prevent pro-environmental tourist behaviour. Additional – currently neglected – theoretical constructs, such as habit and effort, drive such behaviours. The practical implication is that behaviour change interventions may target different constructs, such as habit and effort.
The social capital effects of refugee resettlement
(with David Smerdon)
We examine the social effects of intergroup contact in a novel setting: refugee resettlement. We exploit an exogenous resettlement shock to causally identify its effect on the social capital of individuals in host populations. We combine trust data from a lab-in-the-field experiment with repeated cross sectional survey data to test the predictions of three prominent and opposing theories about intergroup contact: contact theory, conflict theory and constrict theory. Surprisingly, our aggregate results reject all of the theories. A split-sample analysis reveals strong gender effects: the behavior of females exposed to contact with refugees is consistent with contact theory (Allport, 1954), while treated males behave consistently with constrict theory (Putnam, 2007). Females in the treatment group also hold significantly more favorable attitudes toward general refugee resettlement. These results are robust to various specification checks and hold up to a re-weighting of the control group in the style of a synthetic control group analysis.
Findings presented to the Australian Department of Treasury (2017) and Deloitte Access Economics (2018)
Female chess players show typical stereotype threat effects: Comment on Stafford (2018)
(with David Smerdon, Hairong Hu, Andrew McLennan and Bill von Hippel)
Stereotype threat, or the concern that one might be the target of demeaning stereotypes, has been shown to disrupt performance across a variety of domains, but have been criticized as being unlikely to emerge in the real world when motivation to succeed is high (Cullen, Hardison & Sackett, 2004). Consistent with this criticism, Stafford (2018) found that skilled female chess players show a reverse stereotype threat effect when they play against men in tournaments, performing slightly better than would be expected. We run a multiverse analysis on a larger sample of chess games and show that there are significant confounds between gender and age in chess data. After accounting for this, the majority of specifications reveal the typical stereotype threat effect, with females performing worse when they play males than would be expected.
Article covered in ten news outlets across Australia, the US and UK (including The Conversation, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The National Interest, Phys.org)
Working Papers
The effect of exposure to ethnic minorities on ethnic preferences
An earlier version of the paper is published here: CentER Discussion Paper Series Nr. 2020-021
(with Pascal Achard, ENSAE Paris; Riccardo Ghidoni, University of Bologna; Elena Cettolin, Tilburg University; and Sigrid Suetens, Tilburg University)
We investigate the effect of exposure to ethnic minorities on the majority’s preferences with regard to that group using individual-level panel data from the Netherlands. The data combine ethnic preferences with administrative data on refugee facilities. The study period is marked by a sudden inflow of refugees in some neighborhoods. We find that individuals living close to refugee facilities developed a more positive attitude toward ethnic minorities and became less inclined to support anti-immigration parties. Preferences of individuals living farther away remained unchanged. An investigation of channels suggests that the local effect is due to contact between residents and refugees.
Work-in-Progress
Using behavioural economic insights to overcome student procrastination (with Stephen Cheung, University of Sydney; Martin Kocher, University of Vienna; and Lionel Page, University of Queensland)
Taste-based LGBTQI+ discrimination in the gig economy (with Samuel Pearson and David Smerdon, University of Queensland)
Is artistic success colour-blind? (with Lionel Page, University of Queensland)
Men and women's lifecycles of cognitive performance (with David Smerdon, Benedict Gattas and Bill von Hippel, all University of Queensland)
Communicating selfish pleasures to push sustainable consumption (with Sara Dolnicar and Danyelle Greene, University of Queensland)
Matching pro-environmental behaviour with pro-social outcomes (joint with Marion Karl, University of Surrey; and Sara Dolnicar, University of Queensland)