This dissertation presents four independent papers that advance experimental methods and test theories on saving using experimentally elicited characteristics. The first two papers test two behavioral theories on precautionary saving based on the characteristics loss aversion and prudence by...

This dissertation focuses on the relationship between gender equality and economic development, broadly defined. Since the seminal work of Ester Boserup (1970), gender equality is widely understood as being both an instrument for and a consequence of economic development. The first three...

Enhancing women's participation in the labour force has been seen as a way to promote their empowerment which in turn is believed to enhance their well-being and well-being of their children. However, the empirical literature on the relationship between women's employment status and domestic...

A growing literature in economics seeks to explain why people remain poor. Classical theories explained the persistence of poverty with constraints that are external to an individual such as market imperfections and coordination problems. Recently economists explored the role of aspiration...

The world food and non-food needs are expected to increase from 2005/2007 to 2050 by 60 percent, raising concerns on how this demand will be fulfilled sustainably (Le Mouël and Forslund, 2017). To cope with this increase in demand, the agricultural sector faces an essential decision between...

This paper empirically examines the behavioral precautionary saving hypothesis by Koszegi and Rabin (2009) stating that uncertainty about future income triggers saving because of loss aversion. We extend their theoretical analysis to also consider the internal margin, i.e., the strength, of loss...

Affirmative action changes incentives at all stages of the employment process. In this paper, we study the effects of affirmative action statements in job ads on i) the effort expended on the application process and ii) the manifestation of emotions, as measured by the textual analysis of the...