We revisit two clinical trials that randomized depressed adults in India (n=775) to a brief course of psychotherapy or a control condition. Four to five years later, the treatment group was 11 percentage points less likely to be depressed than the control group. The more effective intervention...

I study how people understand and reason about trade and which factors shape their views on trade policy. I design and run large-scale surveys and experiments in the U.S. to elicit respondents' knowledge and understanding of trade. I also ask about their perceived economic gains and...

Prior research, primarily based on lab experiments, suggests that females might be more averse to competition than males and could be more inclined towards collaboration, instead. Were these findings to generalize to adults across the workforce, there could be profound implications for...

Collateral requirements play an important role in credit markets. This paper shows that the endowment effect--the phenomenon where owing a good increases one's valuation of it--inhibits demand for loans which use a borrower's existing assets as collateral. Using a field experiment in Kenya, we...

The standard revealed-preference approach to welfare economics encounters fundamental difficulties when the act of choosing directly affects welfare through emotions such as guilt, pride, and anxiety. We address this problem by developing an approach that redefines consumption bundles in terms...

We survey the recent literature in economics measuring what is on top of people's minds using open-ended questions. We first provide an overview of studies in political economy, macroeconomics, finance, labor economics, and behavioral economics that have employed such measurement. We next...

Almost 50 million Americans are burdened by the need to repay almost $2 trillion in student loan debt, while at the same time having to save for retirement. This article analyzes the potential impact of the 2022 SECURE 2.0 Act reform which permits employers to match contributions for student...

We study a sequential experimentation model with endogenous feedback. Agents choose between a safe and risky action, the latter generating stochastic rewards. When making this choice, each agent is selfishly motivated (myopic). However, agents can disclose their experiences to a public record,...

We investigate the potential welfare cost of relative rank considerations using a series of vignettes and lab-in-the-field experiments with over 2,000 individuals in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. We show that: (1) individuals judged to be of a lower rank are perceived as more likely to be sidelined from...

We explore the mechanics of empathy. In a controlled immersive virtual reality experiment, we show that neutral information on unauthorized immigration magnifies the empathetic response of subjects when they witness the struggles of unauthorized migrants. We conjecture that perceiving others as...