Research

Video Presentation – Janeway Institute Cambridge

Working Papers

Optimal Self-Screening and the Persistence of Identity-Driven Choices, Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2274/ Janeway Institute Working Paper Series 2232

Multidimensional Social Identities and Choice Behavior: The Pitfalls and Opportunities Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2379 / Janeway Institute Working Paper Series 2321

Work In progress

Social Priors and the Informational Multiplier: The Hidden Costs of Coarse Social Information (Draft coming soon)

This paper introduces social priors: beliefs about the relevance of group-specific characteristics in a task formed from publicly observable social data that serve as priors when individuals update on their own signals. When social information is coarse and participation decisions are unobserved, beliefs and behavior interact through an informational multiplier: participation affects aggregate success, aggregate success shapes beliefs, and beliefs in turn determine participation. Under such success-only statistics, this feedback loop can amplify temporary shocks, generate self-fulfilling participation gaps across identical groups, and magnify underlying differences arising from discrimination or unequal fundamentals. By contrast, when success is observed conditional on participation, the informational externality disappears and equilibrium is unique. The framework shows how confidence gaps, stereotypes, and persistent disparities arise as equilibrium outcomes of informational environments. It distinguishes between policies that shift average group productivity and those that alter selection at participation margins: under coarse social information, distributional shape governs feedback strength. Information design therefore shapes both the level and persistence of inequality.

Imitation and Adaptation: How Social Context Shapes Learning Trajectories (with Rebecca Heath), Awarded Keynes Fund Standard Grant

Coarse Interpretation and Self-Censorship: An Organizational View (with Alex Chan), Awarded Keynes Fund Standard Grant

Publications

De nieuwe DNB conjunctuur indicator voorspelt afvlakking groei in 2019 (The New Dutch Central Bank Business Cycle Indicator Predicts decrease in Economic Growth for 2019) with Bas Butler and Maikel Volkerink, Economisch Statistisch Bulletin, Feb 28 (2019)