Paper Supplementary Materials
(with Scott Chua and Jessica Chang), Journal of Economic Psychology
Paper Abstract Featured in Nada es Gratis here (Spanish) [Replication files]
[Paper] [Abstract] [Supplementary Materials]
(with Jean Liu, Boyu Lu Zhao, and Clin Lai), Journal of Institutional Economics.
[Paper] [Abstract] [Supplementary Materials]
[Paper] [Abstract] [Supplementary Materials] [Replication files]
Public Choice.
[Paper] [Abstract] [Supplementary Materials]
[Paper] [Abstract] [Supplementary materials] [Replication files]
I would like to show my gratitude to Matias Bargsted and Orit Kedar for gently sharing their code with me. Click here to read the original Bargsted Kedar (2009)
Work in Progress
This project examines how urban design affects community relations and social capital. Residents in public housing in Singapore (80% of the total population) do not vary in terms of their exposure to socialization mechanisms, but do vary in terms of contact due to variation in the floor plans of buildings. Specifically, one type of public housing building has corridors that facilitate contact between residents, while the other type has corridors that tend to inhibit contact. We compare residents from pairs of building from the two building types, but within the same area. Our questionnaire allows us to capture familiarity with neighbors, as well as important attitudes and behaviors towards intra- and inter-ethnic interaction and social attitudes generally. Preliminary findings suggest that building design has implications not only for social capital but also for attitudes towards the outgroup. This has clear implications for urban design and public policies.
Fair-Weather Friends? Household Social Networks and Disaster Relief Aid (with Cesi Cruz)
This project seeks to understand how social connections affect resource allocation in the context of an emergency. Previous research has shown that after natural disasters, government officials are likely to divert resources to areas where they have larger fractions of supporters, or where they have connections to the local leaders (Aldrich, 2010; Aldrich, 2011; Atkinson et al., 2014; Jablonski, 2014). To the best of our knowledge, however, no research has looked at what happens at the very last step of aid relief distribution|that is, how relief resources are allocated once they reach the village level. The survey datasets we use (one collected by us [N=800], the other by the World Bank [N=1,200]) provide detailed information on social and political connections on the one hand, and relief distribution on the other, in multiple regions in the Philippines that were at some point affected by a typhoon. Preliminary results suggest that, contrary to the dynamics at higher levels, provision of goods at the local level is independent of connections. This suggests that a political economy model that aims to fully capture the value of political connections should account for heterogeneous effects at various levels of political power. The policy implication is clear: decentralization seems to be the optimal choice.
Underreporting turnout in surveys: how can we use it to improve inference.
How Economic Conditions Can Change Cultural Institutions: Eating Habits pre- and post- Civil War in Spain