The purpose of the paper is to highlight the importance of symbolic communication and to synthesize the headway made so far in the understanding of this fundamental component of our conscious and unconscious mind. The extant definitions and descriptions of this process were briefly examined and...

We study how negative sentiment around an industry impacts beliefs and behaviors, focusing on demands for racial justice after the murder of George Floyd and the salience of the “defund the police” movement. We assess stakeholder beliefs on the impact of protests on the stock prices of...

We model an agent who stubbornly underestimates how much his behavior is driven by undesirable motives, and, attributing his behavior to other considerations, updates his views about those considerations. We study general properties of the model, and then apply the framework to identify novel...

Interventions to decrease meat consumption are often only implemented for short periods of time, and it is unclear how they might have lasting effects. We combine student canteen consumption (over 270, 000 purchases made by over 4, 500 guests) and survey data (N 800) to study how a one-month...

We develop a model in which an overconfident agent learns about groups in society from observations of his and others' successes. In our model, both the agent's information and his beliefs are multi-dimensional, allowing us to study interactions between different views. Overall, society always...

This paper investigates the role of mass media in shaping racial tolerance and advancing civil rights in the post-WWII United States. We study the first attempt in the history of mass media to use a radio broadcast targeted at children to promote an inclusive American society. In 1946, amid...

In a labor market model with cheap talk, employers can send messages about their willingness to pay for higher-ability workers, which job-seekers can use to direct their search and tailor their wage bid. Introducing such messages leads - under certain conditions - to an informative separating...

Subjective performance evaluation is an important part of hiring and promotion decisions. We combine experiments with administrative data to understand what drives gender bias in such evaluations in the technology industry. Our results highlight the role of personal interaction. Leveraging...

We study the effects of information on attitudes towards inheritance taxation using survey experiments fielded in Germany. We show that information about tax allowances increases demand for higher taxes and shifts public opinion from favoring abolition to supporting the tax. Effects are...

Subjective performance evaluation is an important part of hiring and promotion decisions. We combine experiments with administrative data to understand what drives gender bias in such evaluations in the technology industry. Our results highlight the role of personal interaction. Leveraging...