Research

Work In progress

Social Priors and the Informational Multiplier: The Hidden Costs of Coarse Social Information

Can low observed success across groups create the very disparities it seems to reveal? This paper develops a fully rational framework to study learning from socially generated data when participation is endogenous. Agents infer group-specific success conditions from socially observed outcomes, but under coarse informational environments the statistic they observe may itself be an equilibrium object, shaped by both underlying conditions and endogenous selection into participation. This generates an informational multiplier: beliefs shape participation, participation shapes the data, and the resulting statistic feeds back into beliefs. The multiplier characterizes when social learning is self-correcting and when it becomes self-reinforcing. When observed statistics conflate success with selection, temporary differences in observed outcomes need not wash out, but can instead generate path-dependent disparities by becoming embedded in beliefs and participation. More broadly, the paper provides a general theory of endogenous social statistics, with important implications for information design and for policies aimed at reducing group disparities.

Choice Architecture in the Age of AI: The Algorithmic Amplification of Behavioural Biases and its Implications for Policy

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

Leadership and Self-Censorship: An Organizational View (with Alex Chan and Clement Minaudier), Awarded Keynes Fund Standard Grant

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

Video Presentation – Janeway Institute Cambridge

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)