Publications
The Limits of Social Recognition: Experimental Evidence from Blood Donors with Lorenz Goette
Journal of Public Economics (2024) (replication files)
Self-Persuasion: Evidence from Field Experiments at International Debating Competitions
with Peter Schwardmann and Joël van der Weele
American Economic Review (2022) (replication files)
Image Concerns in Pledges to Give Blood: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Christian J. Meyer
Journal of Economic Psychology (2021) (replication files)
Social Influence in Prosocial Behavior: Evidence From a Large-Scale Experiment with Lorenz Goette
Journal of the European Economic Association (2021) (replication files)
Unequal Consequences of Covid 19 across Age and Income: Representative Evidence from Six Countries with Michele Belot, Syngjoo Choi, Eline van den Broek-Altenburg, Julian Jamison and Nick Papageorge
Review of Economics of the Household (2021) (replication files)
Socio-Demographic Factors Associated with Self-Protecting Behavior during the Covid-19 Pandemic with Nick Papageorge, Matthew Zahn, Michele Belot, Eline van den Broek-Altenburg, Syngjoo Choi, and Julian Jamison
Journal of Population Economics (2021)
Does Positive Feedback of Social Impact Motivate Prosocial Behavior? A Field Experiment with Blood Donors with Lorenz Goette
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2020) (replication files)
Working Papers
Depression Stigma with Chris Roth and Peter Schwardmann (Abstract, ECONtribute working paper)
Throughout history, people with mental illness have been discriminated against and stigmatized. Our experiment provides a new measure of perceived depression stigma and then investigates the causal effect of perceived stigma on help-seeking in a sample of 1,844 Americans suffering from depression. A large majority of our participants overestimate the extent of stigma associated with depression. In contrast to prior correlational evidence, lowering perceived social stigma through an information intervention leads to a reduction in the demand for psychotherapy. A mechanism experiment reveals that this information increases optimism about future mental health, thereby reducing the perceived need for therapy.
Misperceived Effectiveness and the Demand for Psychotherapy with Chris Roth and Peter Schwardmann (Abstract, ECONtribute working paper)
While psychotherapy has been shown to be effective in treating depression, take-up remains low. In a sample of 1,843 depressed individuals, we document that concerns about effectiveness are top of mind when respondents consider the value of therapy. We then show that the average respondent underestimates the effectiveness of therapy and that an information treatment that corrects this misperception increases participants’ incentivized willingness to pay for therapy. Information affects therapy demand by changing beliefs rather than by shifting attention. Our results suggest that information interventions that target the perceived effectiveness of therapy are a potent tool in combating the ongoing mental health crisis.
Social Preferences Under the Shadow of the Future with Felix Kölle and Simone Quercia (Abstract)
Social interactions predominantly take place under the shadow of the future. Previous literature explains cooperation in indefinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma as predominantly driven by self-interested strategic considerations. This paper provides a causal test of the importance of social preferences for cooperation, varying the composition of interactions to be either homogeneous or heterogeneous in terms of these preferences. Through a series of pre-registered experiments (N = 1,074), we show that groups of prosocial individuals achieve substantially higher levels of cooperation. The cooperation gap between prosocial and selfish groups persists even when the shadow of the future is increased to make cooperation attractive for the selfish and when common knowledge about group composition is removed.
Non-refereed Publications
Six-Country Survey on Covid-19 with Michele Belot, Eline van den Broek-Altenburg, Syngjoo Choi, Julian Jamison, and Nick Papageorge
Covid Economics (2020) (IZA discussion paper, DATA)
Dormant Papers
Sorting Into Incentives for Prosocial Behavior with Christian. J. Meyer (Abstract, SSRN working paper)
This paper studies incentivized voluntary contributions to a charitable activity.
Motivated by the market for blood donations in Germany, we study a setting where different incentives coexist and agents can choose to donate without receiving monetary compensation. This lets agents reveal and signal their individual preferences through their actions. In a model that interacts image concerns of agents with intrinsic and extrinsic incentives to donate, we show that this setting can bring about efficiency gains in the collection similar to those deriving from self-selection in second-degree price discrimination. We develop a laboratory experiment to test our theoretical predictions under controlled conditions. Results show that a collection system where compensation can be turned down can improve the efficiency of collection. Introducing the choice to be compensated does not crowd out unpaid donations. A significant share of donors chooses to donate without being compensated. Heterogeneity in treatment effects suggests gender-specific preferences over signaling.