Job Market Paper:

• "Working for Others - or Not: An Experimental Analysis of Effort Provision in Redistributive Systems" (with Johanna Mollerstrom)

  • Abstract:  We investigate how effort provision changes when a portion of labor earnings is withheld and redistributed to others. Across three online experiments with 1,600 participants, we find that people work less when taxed or when earnings are redirected to benefit various organizations, even when personal earnings are held constant, reflecting a general aversion to working for others. This response persists, though weakens slightly, even when participants favor the beneficiaries. Allowing participants to choose the beneficiary does little to reduce this aversion, but giving them the option to work solely for themselves or for a chosen beneficiary mitigates the negative effect. Our findings suggest that decreasing the salience of taxes and enhancing taxpayer autonomy may increase the efficiency of redistributive systems.

Published Papers:

• "Do People Trust Humans More Than ChatGPT?" (with Joy Buchanan, published in the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 2024)

  • Abstract: We explore whether people trust the accuracy of statements produced by large language models (LLMs) versus those written by humans. While LLMs have showcased impressive capabilities in generating text, concerns have been raised regarding the potential for misinformation, bias, or false responses. In this experiment, participants rate the accuracy of statements under different information conditions. Participants who are not explicitly informed of authorship tend to trust statements they believe are human-written more than those attributed to ChatGPT. However, when informed about authorship, participants show equal skepticism towards both human and AI writers. Informed participants are, overall, more likely to choose costly fact-checking. These outcomes suggest that trust in AI-generated content is context-dependent.

  • Replication Package: available here

Working Papers:

• "Valuation of control over income and time use: A field experiment with spouses in Rwanda"   (with Berber Kramer and Johanna Mollerstrom, under review in the European Economic Review)

  • Abstract: Agricultural development programs often aim to increase women's incomes and enhance their control over family resources by offering new work opportunities. As an unintended negative consequence, these programs may however increase women's already heavy workloads. By means of a lab-in-the-field experiment in rural Rwanda, we elicit men’s and women’s valuations of control over income, time use, and trade-offs between them. We find that women are willing to sacrifice more household income to increase their control over income than their husbands are. However, the magnitude of respondents' valuations of control over income is small. At the same time, respondents place a high value on time, and this valuation does not vary by gender. Our findings highlight the potential value of development programs introducing time-saving practices, technologies, and services, instead of focusing solely on increasing women's control over monetary resources.

Work in Progress:

• "Outcome Attribution, Demand for Redistribution, and the Genetic Lottery" (with Johanna Mollerstrom)

  • Abstract:  We conduct an experiment to study beliefs about outcome attribution, demand for redistribution, and the influence of genes on outcomes. We find that participants' demand for redistribution is increasing in their belief in the importance of luck in determining life's outcomes. We also find that participants' demand for redistribution decreases in their belief that individuals have control over their outcomes and increases in their belief that genes influence outcomes. Informing participants about the role genes play in determining social outcomes influences stated opinions about the extent to which genes determine talent but this is not the case for opinions about the extent to which genes determine effort. 

• "Alcohol Privatization in Alberta: Assessing Economic and Social Outcomes Using Synthetic Difference in Differences"

  • Abstract: In the early 1990s, Alberta underwent a significant policy shift by privatizing its alcohol retail market. This paper applies the synthetic difference-in-differences method to evaluate the economic and social impacts of this privatization, comparing Alberta to a synthetic counterfactual composed of other Canadian provinces. I find that alcohol consumption did not significantly change following privatization, although alcohol prices increased. Additionally, there were no significant changes in public safety outcomes, including homicide rates, death rates, or violent crime rates. By using the synthetic difference-in-differences method, this study provides a more precise understanding of the causal impacts of alcohol privatization in Alberta compared to previous studies. My findings contribute to the broader policy debate by offering quasi-causal evidence that privatization, while increasing prices, did not significantly increase alcohol consumption or death rates.