Market Design for the Reallocation of Land. This fellowship uses laboratory and lab-in-the-field experiments to explores how market design can be used to develop combinatorial exchanges that allow participants to exchange packages of land. Allowing for package bids can facilitate trade in situations where owning one piece of land increases the value of adjacent land and where assembling contiguous pieces of land is important. Combinatorial exchanges have the potential to increase the productivit ....Market Design for the Reallocation of Land. This fellowship uses laboratory and lab-in-the-field experiments to explores how market design can be used to develop combinatorial exchanges that allow participants to exchange packages of land. Allowing for package bids can facilitate trade in situations where owning one piece of land increases the value of adjacent land and where assembling contiguous pieces of land is important. Combinatorial exchanges have the potential to increase the productivity of agriculture land in both Australia and developing countries, encourage urban redevelopment, and help the government secure land for infrastructure and environmental protection in a cost-effective way.Read moreRead less
Voter behaviour and polarisation: The role of social preferences. This project aims to investigate how peer pressure and other social concerns affect voter participation, vote choice, and political polarisation. It will marry behavioural experimental economics with political economics and make use of complementary experimental methods that will allow for the study of carefully controlled elections, followed by a large-scale real-world test of the results. Expected outcomes include improved under ....Voter behaviour and polarisation: The role of social preferences. This project aims to investigate how peer pressure and other social concerns affect voter participation, vote choice, and political polarisation. It will marry behavioural experimental economics with political economics and make use of complementary experimental methods that will allow for the study of carefully controlled elections, followed by a large-scale real-world test of the results. Expected outcomes include improved understanding of how social media and other social factors, and political institutions such as compulsory voting, distort election representation and outcomes. Major benefits include the ability to advise policies to reduce polarisation and improve political institutions to ensure they reflect true societal preferences.Read moreRead less
Bayesian analysis of individual decisions in health and labour economics. This project aims to exploit emerging Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo methods to develop new approaches to modelling economic decision making. These methods will generate insights into two current and important policy debates. This includes (i) marijuana, alcohol and tobacco use and legalisation of marijuana use; and (ii) parental leave policies, maternity leave decisions and mothers' labour market dynamics. Although p ....Bayesian analysis of individual decisions in health and labour economics. This project aims to exploit emerging Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo methods to develop new approaches to modelling economic decision making. These methods will generate insights into two current and important policy debates. This includes (i) marijuana, alcohol and tobacco use and legalisation of marijuana use; and (ii) parental leave policies, maternity leave decisions and mothers' labour market dynamics. Although policies play an important role in observed health and labour market behaviours, their exact effects on individuals' decisions and outcomes are often difficult to quantify due to the complex nature of the decision process. Outcomes from the project will include new evidence of changes in substance uses under different legal scenarios and provide benefits such as yielding vital evidence on labour market and health behaviour impacts to support policy makers and strengthen Australia's research capacity in Bayesian analysis.Read moreRead less
Information design, cognitive abilities and macro-economic stability. This project aims to improve our understanding of individual decision making in financial markets and its implications for macro-economic stability. Using laboratory and internet experiments, models of adaptive choice behaviour will be developed and validated. The project will help to gain insight into how past information, and the way it is presented, affects investment decisions, which individual characteristics matter for d ....Information design, cognitive abilities and macro-economic stability. This project aims to improve our understanding of individual decision making in financial markets and its implications for macro-economic stability. Using laboratory and internet experiments, models of adaptive choice behaviour will be developed and validated. The project will help to gain insight into how past information, and the way it is presented, affects investment decisions, which individual characteristics matter for decisions, and how this behaviour translates into the evolution of aggregate macro-economic variables. The expected outcomes of the project will have the potential to improve the design of tools for better individual financial decision making, to stabilize volatile markets and to enhance economic welfare.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE190100585
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$370,000.00
Summary
Women, task allocations, and advancement in the labour market. This project aims to investigate the origins and labour market consequences of gender differences in willingness to perform low-promotability tasks. The design of practices and institutions that can close gender gaps in the labour market and promote the advancement of the highest quality workforce in organisations requires information about the factors that affect career advancement. This project will study the allocation of tasks th ....Women, task allocations, and advancement in the labour market. This project aims to investigate the origins and labour market consequences of gender differences in willingness to perform low-promotability tasks. The design of practices and institutions that can close gender gaps in the labour market and promote the advancement of the highest quality workforce in organisations requires information about the factors that affect career advancement. This project will study the allocation of tasks that do not enhance prospects for promotion. The project will provide new insights regarding how organisations and the government can design programs to reduce the under-representation of women in leadership positions and in traditionally male-dominated fields.Read moreRead less
Economics of Biased Beliefs: Implications for Diversity Gaps in Workplaces. By developing state-of-the-art experimental and behavioural methodologies to study biased belief formation, this project aims to improve our understanding of the factors contributing to diversity gaps in labour market outcomes in Australia. The project investigates biases in the beliefs formed about the performance of women and minorities, and how these biases can be reduced through policy interventions and improved orga ....Economics of Biased Beliefs: Implications for Diversity Gaps in Workplaces. By developing state-of-the-art experimental and behavioural methodologies to study biased belief formation, this project aims to improve our understanding of the factors contributing to diversity gaps in labour market outcomes in Australia. The project investigates biases in the beliefs formed about the performance of women and minorities, and how these biases can be reduced through policy interventions and improved organisational structures. Expected outcomes include informing policy makers of appropriate interventions and expanding scholarly knowledge of the economic impact of discrimination. The insights gained will enhance Australia’s economic performance by improving workplace diversity and dynamics.Read moreRead less
Information acquisition and voting behaviour. This project aims to understand citizens’ decisions to acquire information about different policy proposals within a democracy and how such information affects their voting behaviour. Proper democracies rely on the informed participation of their citizens in the political debate and political institutions. The project intends to provide formal theories of information acquisition together with empirical evidence on how voting decisions are shaped by t ....Information acquisition and voting behaviour. This project aims to understand citizens’ decisions to acquire information about different policy proposals within a democracy and how such information affects their voting behaviour. Proper democracies rely on the informed participation of their citizens in the political debate and political institutions. The project intends to provide formal theories of information acquisition together with empirical evidence on how voting decisions are shaped by the quantity and quality of information. Understanding how citizens decide to acquire information would help devise policies to reduce polarisation and improve the quality of the political debate and the democracy.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE200100653
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$399,350.00
Summary
Tools of racial control: an economic analysis of laws vs. violence. This project aims to develop and empirically test a theory of racial violence, which predicts that as racist laws are removed, racial violence increases. To test this hypothesis, I will construct a new, comprehensive dataset of lynchings and racist legislation in post-Civil War America, where newly freed blacks gained significant freedoms, but also experienced widespread violence. The empirical analysis proposes to identify a no ....Tools of racial control: an economic analysis of laws vs. violence. This project aims to develop and empirically test a theory of racial violence, which predicts that as racist laws are removed, racial violence increases. To test this hypothesis, I will construct a new, comprehensive dataset of lynchings and racist legislation in post-Civil War America, where newly freed blacks gained significant freedoms, but also experienced widespread violence. The empirical analysis proposes to identify a novel mechanism for racial violence in this context: a desire for racial control in areas that incurred shocks to the white sex ratio during the Civil War and distorted marriage markets thereafter. The findings aim to significantly contribute to our understanding of racial violence in both the US and Australia today.Read moreRead less
Origins, evolution, and economic cost of gender norms. Gender norms are slow to change, and key drivers of economic development. This proposal leverages natural experiments to test their causal implications on two major channels of economic growth: the trust shared by individuals and the productivity of firms. It will use cutting-edge empirical techniques to generate novel measures of diversity and inclusion for Australian firms, and will conduct original fieldwork, matching experimental measure ....Origins, evolution, and economic cost of gender norms. Gender norms are slow to change, and key drivers of economic development. This proposal leverages natural experiments to test their causal implications on two major channels of economic growth: the trust shared by individuals and the productivity of firms. It will use cutting-edge empirical techniques to generate novel measures of diversity and inclusion for Australian firms, and will conduct original fieldwork, matching experimental measures of trust and cooperation with variation in traditional male versus female roles. This research aims at improving fundamental knowledge about how cultural norms shape economic outcomes and anticipates delivering practical policy recommendations for more efficient and inclusive economic growth. Read moreRead less
Informal sanctions and bad social norms. This project aims to improve the understanding of informal sanctions to enforce compliance with social norms. Unlike most behavioural economics studies, this project examines norms leading to outcomes that are inefficient, unjust or cruel, such as honour-killings or parochial violence. This project develops experimental paradigms to study "bad" norms in the laboratory. It will investigate a setting in which co-operation is inefficient; the use of sanction ....Informal sanctions and bad social norms. This project aims to improve the understanding of informal sanctions to enforce compliance with social norms. Unlike most behavioural economics studies, this project examines norms leading to outcomes that are inefficient, unjust or cruel, such as honour-killings or parochial violence. This project develops experimental paradigms to study "bad" norms in the laboratory. It will investigate a setting in which co-operation is inefficient; the use of sanctions to segregate groups; and the emergence of honour norms and their implications. The project aspires to build a platform that can lead to effective policies against harmful social norms.Read moreRead less