Publications
The Persistence of Disadvantages: Theory and Experiment
Abstract: Many economic situations involve contests for resources, such as winning prizes and earning bonuses. The likelihood of success in such contests is often skewed, favoring some competitors while putting others at a disadvantage. I study the strategic interaction between an advantaged and a disadvantaged competitor in a repeated contest where winning can help overcome the initial disadvantage. Theoretically, the competition for advantage increases effort by both competitors, but the advantaged competitor increases effort more than the disadvantaged competitor. As a result, the disadvantaged competitor is even less likely to win when they have the potential to overcome their disadvantage, and the initial disadvantage is persistent. Evidence from a laboratory experiment supports these theoretical predictions.
Legal Barriers, Social Norms, and Female Labor Force Participation
Abstract: Legal gender equality has advanced worldwide, yet female labor force participation remains uneven across countries. This paper studies why similar legal reforms generate different labor market outcomes across contexts. We develop a simple dynamic model in which women’s labor market participation depends jointly on legal barriers and a social or normative cost that evolves endogenously with observed female labor force participation. The model formalizes a threshold mechanism: legal reform raises participation only if it is sufficiently strong to offset prevailing normative costs, which vary across societies. This framework clarifies why identical reforms may trigger self-reinforcing participation gains in some countries but fail to produce measurable effects in others. Guided by the model’s testable predictions, we combine the Women, Business and the Law (WBL) index with gender-attitude measures from the World Values Survey and estimate the effects of large legal reforms using a staggered difference-in-differences design à la Callaway and Sant’Anna (2021) for 155 economies over 1990–2023. Consistent with the model, legal reforms increase female labor force participation only in countries with relatively progressive gender norms, while reforms have no statistically discernible effect in more norm-conservative settings. The results highlight that legal reform is necessary but not sufficient: its effectiveness depends critically on the normative environment in which it is implemented.
Working Papers
The Economics of Begging
Abstract: We provide the first large-scale evidence on the economics of begging, combining field observations with incentivized experiments involving over 2,000 beggars and donors in India. Guided by a signaling model in which donors give less when begging is by choice, we show that 31 percent of beggars use costly effort signaling by offering low-value items. Donors perceive these beggars as less labor-averse and give more. Yet, donors significantly overestimate the share of labor-averse beggars, while most beggars prefer paid work over free cash. Our findings suggest that reducing employment barriers may curb begging more effectively than fairness-driven legal restrictions.
Lawful Progress: Unveiling the Laws That Reshape Women’s Work Decisions
Abstract: This paper examines the impact of women’s legal rights on labor force participation decisions made by women and men through a granular analysis of 35 gendered laws. Building on previous literature, it departs from the analysis using aggregate indices due to concerns about (i) the usability of an index for policymaking purposes, (ii) the economic interpretation of an index’s average marginal effects, and (iii) the implicit assumption of homogeneous effects underlying regressions with an index. The findings identify nine key laws that can foster female labor force participation. Notably, laws related to household dynamics and women’s agency within the family, such as divorce and property rights laws, and laws regarding the ability of women to travel outside the home, are especially important in influencing their decision to work. The paper also shows that improving women’s legal rights does not negatively affect men’s participation in the labor force.
Can’t Agree to Disagree: Fairness Concerns and Conflict
Abstract: We study how concerns about fairness influence the relationship between income inequality and preference for conflict. Existing literature provides mixed results on whether inequality exacerbates conflict, where some find a positive effect while others fail to find any effect. We propose and test a fairness mechanism which addresses this discrepancy and suggests that conflict arises not solely from inequality but from disagreement over whether such inequality is merit-based (and thus fair) or luck-based (and thus unfair). When perceptions align and inequality is agreed on as fair or unfair, conflict remains minimal. However, disagreement over fairness perceptions leads to increased conflict over redistribution rights. Experimental evidence confirms the theoretical predictions.