Research

I am a mathematical social scientist working in the intersection of economics, social work and computer science. My research focuses on the behavioral “supply chain” of public/social service provision: determinants of voluntary contributions, design of mechanisms, and models of behavior of the very low income.

CV.

• Casual Physical Contact and Outgroup Bias: Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan” with Luke Condra, forthcoming at Journal of Politics

  Ethnic bias, as measured by lack of altruism, increases when non-coethnics are physically present. Contact-induced bias appears connected to language differences.

• “Clerics and Scriptures: Experimentally Disentangling the Influence of Religious Authority in Afghanistan” with Luke Condra and Mohammad Isaqzadeh, British Journal of Political Science (2017), pp.1-19

  Solicitation by religious authorities compels people to give, but giving drops to the minimum. Intrinsic motivation appears crowded out.

• “Wallflowers: Experimental Evidence of an Aversion to Standing Out” with Daniel Jones. Management Science (July 2014), 60 (7), pp. 1757-1771. Online Appendix B, C, D.

  Removing anonymity in giving and volunteering induces women to imitate others’ prosocial behavior, suggesting gender specific concerns about appearing to be different.

• “No Excuses for Good Behavior: Volunteering and the Social Environment” with Margaret Anne McConnell. Journal of Public Economics (June 2011), 95, 5-6, pp 445-454.

  People do not want to be the most unaltruistic person in a room — and hence will use excuses to avoid taking prosocial action while protecting their reputation.

• Peer Coordination and Communication Following Disaster Warnings: An Experimental Framework, Safety Science (December 2016), 90, pp. 24-32

  A design proposal to test the impact of utilizing social influence to improve evacuation outcomes. Read more.

• “Can Relational Contracts Survive Stochastic Interruptions?” with Colin Camerer, revise and resubmit Experimental Economics

  In a setting where firms reward “prosocial” workers with employment, removing the stigma of unemployment turns out to not harm market efficiency.

• Globalization and Altruism Towards the Poor in Developing Countries: Experimental Evidence from India” with Nita Rudra, under review

  When multinational firms enter developing countries, the poor are perceived as needing less help.

• Ongoing studies:

  • “The Effect of Religious Prohibition of Economic Behavior”, with Rebecca Morton, Kai Ou, Xiangdong Qin, and Gumilang Sahadewo.

ECON + SOCIAL WORK

Field experiments and surveys with the working homeless, former inmates, and minimum wage workers in the United States.

• “Competition as a Savings Incentive: a Field Experiment at a Homeless Shelter” with Tomomi Tanaka, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (Nov 2013), 95, pp. 240-251

  A savings competition among the working homeless at a transitional shelter temporarily increased savings, but the effect does not appear to persist in the long run.

• “Awareness of Low Self-Control: Theory and Evidence at a Homeless Shelter” with Elif Incekara Hafalir, Journal of Economic Psychology (March 2017), 61, pp.39-54

  Survey measures of self-control appear to be driven by one’s awareness of his/her self-control problems. Larger self-reported problems among the working homeless were correlated with larger savings in shelter lockboxes, a commitment savings device.

• Ongoing studies:

  • “Utilization of Social Services Among Ex-Inmates” with Marco Castillo and Ragan Petrie

  • “From Barely Making It To…? Effects of Raising Wages Among Low-Wage Workers” with Jeffrey Shook, Ray Engel, and other colleagues from the School of Social Work.

ECON + CS
Design of mechanisms for practical use and privacy-preserving prediction.

• “Prediction Markets: Alternative Mechanisms for Complex Environments with Few Traders” with PJ Healy, Richard Lowery, and John Ledyard. Management Science (2010), 56 (11), pp. 1977-1996.

  When information is complex, information aggregation is incomplete. Non-market mechanisms outperforms the double auction.

• “Accounting for Noise in the Microfoundation of Information Aggregation”, Games and Economic Behavior (2017), 101, pp. 334-353

  I develop a computational method to rank a set of information structures on how “incomplete” aggregation will be. Aggregation in information structures that requires human subjects to be very precise/noiseless are ex-ante predicted to be poor.

• ” Mobile Communication Surrounding Political Violence in Cote d’Ivoire” with Daniel Berger and Shankar Kalyanaraman

  With data from Orange Telecom and the United Nations peacekeeping operations in Côte d’Ivoire, we show that mobile phone usage data may be aggregating signals about incipient political violence. Comparisons of mobile patterns preceeding festivals and sporting events are included.

• Ongoing studies:

  • Building a Smart City Economy and Information Ecosystem to Motivate Pro-Social Transportation Behavior with Alexandros Labrinidis , Yu-ru Lin, and other colleagues from the School of Computing and Information.