Sofia Shchukina

Welcome! I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Economics at the University of Chicago.

I am an applied microeconomist specializing in behavioral economics and public economics, with additional interests in the economics of education and healthcare.

My research uses field experiments, surveys, and quasi-experimental econometric methods applied to observational data to study how emerging technologies and sociocultural trends impact decision-making, behavior, and outcomes in areas such as partner choice, consumer purchases, and education.

I am on the 2026-2027 academic job market.

You can find my CV here. You can reach me by email at sofiashchukina@uchicago.edu

JOB MARKET PAPER: Love at First Photo? How Platform Design Concentrates Romantic Interest on Dating Apps

Abstract: Romantic interest on swipe-based dating apps (SBDAs) is highly concentrated. This can frustrate both popular users who feel overwhelmed by a glut of attention, and less popular users who feel dejected by a lack of it. Is the concentration of interest exacerbated by the platform design of dating apps? I provide causal evidence on the effects of two common design features -- the emphasis on visual elements in profiles, and limits on the number of profiles users can express interest in -- on the concentration of interest ("likes"), and show that both, as implemented under the status quo, concentrate interest. To do so, I design, build, and run my own experimental dating app, which closely resembles conventional SBDAs and allows participants to form real matches. Across three field experiments, over 1,000 participants use the app to make over 70,000 matching decisions. Under conventional SBDA profile design, I show that visual profile components (i.e., photos and height) dominate matching decisions, and that the concentration of interest is driven mainly by users' reactions to profile visuals. Simply reducing the salience of visuals on profiles does not significantly affect which profiles receive likes, but requiring users to screen profiles on other components spreads likes more evenly (Gini coefficient decrease of 0.05 points) without reducing their number or the resultant number of matches. Finally, I show that limiting the number of profiles that users can express interest in, which many SBDAs do as part of a freemium subscription model, amplifies concentration (Gini coefficient increase of 0.1 points).

Working Papers

Changing Gears: The Welfare Impacts of Brand Ideology

with Ashton Pallottini.

Abstract: We examine the extent to which ideology influences consumer willingness-to-pay (WTP) for an environmental good and, consequently, private and social welfare. Using Texas vehicle registrations, we estimate that WTP for the Tesla brand falls by $12,000 among Democrat ZIPs and moderate ZIPs from 2021Q1 through 2025Q1. We show that the steepest falls in WTP for Teslas correspond to CEO Elon Musk's Republican political involvement. We observe a particularly sharp fall in WTP for Teslas of $8,000 during Musk's involvement in the 2024 election. Consequently, we estimate that Musk's 2024 election involvement leads Tesla revenues to fall $2.3 billion per year in the U.S.A. Democrat and moderate consumers substitute primarily to gas vehicles, leading annual damages from vehicular carbon emissions to rise by $32 million and private surplus to fall by $1.6 billion per year. Our findings highlight that ideology drives consumption of environmental goods, which may inhibit private and social welfare.

Work in Progress

EV or not EV: How Information Frictions Impact Willingness-To-Pay to Mitigate Carbon Emissions

with Ashton Pallottini

Preliminary Abstract: Consumers frequently purchase environmental goods which have minimal environmental benefits, suggesting that consumers do not actually value such environmental benefits. We examine electric vehicles (EVs) to study consumer willingness-to-pay (WTP) to mitigate carbon emissions, highlighting that information frictions drive demand for low-benefit environmental goods. We show in a survey that consumers underestimate the emissions of EVs and incorrectly view EV emissions as homogeneous across models. We project beliefs measured in our survey onto vehicle registrations data, enabling us to estimate WTP for perceived emissions. We find median consumer WTP of $92 per metric ton of carbon mitigated, compared to an estimated $0 when not accounting for inaccurate consumer beliefs. We show, however, that correcting incorrect beliefs may not be socially optimal, as it induces many consumers to substitute from EVs to gas vehicles. The net impact of such substitution is an increase in vehicular emissions worth $700,000 per year.

Friday Night Lights, Monday Morning Grades: How High School Football Success Affects Student Achievement

with Evan Bennett, Gagandeep Sachdeva, and Derek Rury

Preliminary Abstract: We study whether school sports teams' success on the sports field has spillover effects on students enrolled at the same school. To study this, we collect longitudinal data on high school football performance in Texas, and combine it with administrative data on student outcomes. We find that a schools' increased success on the football field has positive effects on a number of student outcomes, including disciplinary action, graduation rates, and college attendance. Effects are generally larger and more significant for men relative to women. Our results suggest that success in a male-typed activity, football, can increase aspiration for male students and positively impact their long-run trajectories.

Resting Papers

Vertical Integration in Wholesale Drug Distribution: Implications for the Opioid Epidemic

Third Year Paper

Abstract: This paper studies the role of vertical integration between retail pharmacies and drug distributors (the middlemen who buy drugs from manufacturers and sell them to clinics and pharmacies) in the opioid epidemic. Specifically, it looks at the effect of vertical integration on retail pharmacies’ opioid sales. Using a differences-in-differences specification, I find no significant change in opioid sales when non-vertically integrated pharmacies get acquired by a vertically integrated pharmacy chain, suggesting no effect of vertical integration on opioid sales. However, I also find that the acquired pharmacies start using the in-house distribution network shortly after acquisition, and that their opioid sales start to trend like the acquiring chain’s opioid sales. Next, I use the 2010 OxyContin reformulation, which made a potent prescription opioid less attractive for illicit use, as a quasi-experiment to investigate the effect of vertical integration on diversion (the sale of prescription drugs for illicit use). My results suggest that vertically integrated pharmacies experienced less OxyContin diversion prior to the reformulation, however, a careful analysis of this result reveals that it is more likely to be driven by chain-specific effects than by vertical integration. Taken together, my results suggest that different pharmacy chains have different propensities to distribute opioids, but these differences are not driven by vertical integration. I conclude by presenting observational evidence to examine the potential incidence and causes of these chain-specific effects in more detail.

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