Working Papers

Under Parents' Watch: The Effect of Parental Observability on Educational Choices (pdf) [formerly circulated as "Parental Pressure and Educational Choices"]

This paper tests for parental observability as a driver of students' post-secondary educational choices and as a mechanism behind socio-economic disparities in college attendance. To understand the impact of parental observability, I conduct a field experiment in Germany randomizing whether students' stated aspirations are shared with parents. Parental observability strongly influences students' stated college aspirations and field rankings, triggering opposite reactions at different school types and doubling the socio-economic gap in college aspirations from 13 to 26 percentage points. While aspirations stated under parental observability better predict actual choices, aspirations elicited in private better predict satisfaction, persistence, and performance in the chosen field. Students' stated motives point to the desire for parental recognition, rather than open conflict avoidance or salience of parental constraints, as the concern behind these adjustments. The findings suggest that the social concerns activated by parental observability constitute a subtle, hard-to-detect form of parental influence that nevertheless has the power to shape individual choices and therefore societal outcomes such as social mobility and the allocation of talent.

Selective Memory around Big Life Decisions [pdf]

Selective memory can lead people to mistake life outcomes as what they always wanted. Using data on past fertility desires from a panel tracking fertility preferences and actual fertility for 3,936 Kenyans from their early twenties to their thirties, I provide monetary incentives to remember and to be reminded of past desires. I find that: (i) 29% of respondents have more children by their thirties than once desired; (ii) despite incentives, especially respondents with excess fertility misremember past desires in the direction of current fertility and do not want to be reminded of them, consistent with motivated memory; (iii) selective memory affects the intergenerational transmission of fertility preferences.

Coverage: Roland Bénabou's 2021 Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize lecture on "Beliefs and Misbeliefs: The Economics of Wishful Thinking", video here (1:04:24 to 1:09:40)

The Price of Identity: Overoptimism and Congruence Concerns [pdf] (with Eugen Dimant, Kwabena Donkor, Lorenz Götte, Michael Kurschilgen)

Abstract: We study how social identity distorts both beliefs and preferences in decisions under uncertainty. In field experiments with 2,410 Premier League soccer fans in Kenya and the UK during the 2021/22 season, participants report subjective probabilities and place incentivized bets on match outcomes. Each participant bets on matches that sometimes involve their supported team and sometimes do not, holding the decision problem constant. Supporters overestimate their team's win probability by 10-18 percent relative to neutral bettors and allocate about 20 percent more of their budget to bets on their own team than to otherwise similar matches where they are neutral. A structural portfolio-allocation model separates the role of distorted beliefs from that of identity-driven preferences. Distorted beliefs explain 30-44 percent of the excess investment in favored teams, while the remaining 56--70 percent reflects an aversion to profiting when one's team loses, equivalent to valuing payoffs from such outcomes by 17-27 percent less. Variation in both recent and season-long performance reveals that this preference to avoid ``disloyal'' gains is stronger when teams perform poorly. Welfare losses from identity-driven distortions amount to 0.5-2.7 percent of betting budgets, with the magnitude depending on whether identity preferences are treated as welfare-relevant or as mistakes. Because identity-driven preferences operate independently of beliefs, correcting misperceptions alone would leave more than half of the distortion in place.

Coverage: Insights by Stanford Business

Under Pressure? Experimental Evidence of Parental and Peer Observability on Students' Occupational Aspirations (with Lea Cassar, Christina Felfe de Ormeño, and Denise Feigl)

Abstract: We provide causal evidence on how perceived parental and peer pressure shape students' occupational aspirations and trace these effects across school years to identify when external influences first emerge. Specifically, we conduct a randomized control trial with 2,840 secondary school students in Germany, varying the observability of stated occupational aspirations to parents or peers. Making aspirations visible reinforces stereotypical aspirations — increasing the STEM gender gap by 40% under peer observability and nearly doubling it under parental observability — with effects emerging as early as sixth grade. Our findings highlight the importance of interventions that engage parents and address peer dynamics early — before students adapt their aspirations to social pressure.

Publications

The Illusion of Stable Fertility Preferences (Population Studies) (with Joan Hamory, Jennifer Johnson-Hanks and Edward Miguel) [pdf, replication data]

Abstract: Fertility preferences have long played a key role in models of fertility differentials and change. We examine the stability of preferences over time using rich panel data on Kenyan women’s fertility desires, expectations, actual fertility, and recall of desires in three waves over a nine-year period, when respondents were in their 20s. We find that although desired fertility is quite unstable, most women perceive their desires to be stable. Under hypothetical future scenarios, few expect their desired fertility to increase over time but, in fact, such increases in fertility desires are common. Moreover, when asked to recall past desires, most respondents report previously wanting exactly as many children as they desire today. These patterns of bias are consistent with the emerging view that fertility desires are contextual, emotionally laden, and structured by identity. 

(Selected) Work in Progress

Social Influences in Prosocial Giving (with Jonas Radbruch)