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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Temperature And Convictions: Evidence From India, Terry Ann Craigie, Vis Taraz, Mariyana Zapryanova Jul 2023

Temperature And Convictions: Evidence From India, Terry Ann Craigie, Vis Taraz, Mariyana Zapryanova

Economics: Faculty Publications

High temperatures have been shown to affect human cognition and decision-making in a variety of settings. In this paper, we explore the extent to which higher temperatures affect judicial decision-making in India. We use data on judicial decisions from the Indian eCourt platform, merged with high-resolution gridded daily weather data. We estimate causal effects by leveraging a fixed effects framework. We find that high daily maximum temperatures raise the likelihood of convictions and these results are robust to numerous controls and specifications. Our findings contribute to a growing literature that documents that the negative impacts of rising temperatures are often …


Paying For What Kind Of Performance? Performance Pay, Multitasking, And Sorting In Mission-Oriented Jobs, Daniel B. Jones, Mirco Tonin, Michael Vlassopoulos, K. Pun Winichakul May 2023

Paying For What Kind Of Performance? Performance Pay, Multitasking, And Sorting In Mission-Oriented Jobs, Daniel B. Jones, Mirco Tonin, Michael Vlassopoulos, K. Pun Winichakul

Economics: Faculty Publications

How does pay-for-performance (P4P) impact productivity and the composition of workers in mission-oriented jobs when output has multiple dimensions? This is a central issue in the public sector, particularly in areas such as education and healthcare. We conduct an experiment, manipulating compensation and mission, to answer these questions. We find that P4P has significantly smaller positive effects on productivity on the incentivized (quantity) dimension in the mission-oriented setting relative to the non-mission-oriented setting. On the other hand, P4P generates no loss in performance on the non-incentivized (quality) dimension of effort in the mission-oriented setting, whereas it does so in the …


Simon Doesn’T Say: Minimal Qualitative Distortions From Experimenter Demand, David Danz, Marissa Lepper, Guillermo Lezama, Priyoma Mustafi, Lise Verterlund, Alistair Wilson, K. Pun Winichakul Mar 2023

Simon Doesn’T Say: Minimal Qualitative Distortions From Experimenter Demand, David Danz, Marissa Lepper, Guillermo Lezama, Priyoma Mustafi, Lise Verterlund, Alistair Wilson, K. Pun Winichakul

Economics: Faculty Publications

Experimenter demand is a clear threat to the validity of experimental results. To understand the extent of this threat for lab studies, we apply the quantitative frame- work from de Quidt, Haushofer and Roth (2018) to explore whether experimenter demand can generate flawed qualitative inference in experimental studies, using four classic behavioral findings. In these four settings we examine the extent to which demand can alter the nature of a comparative-static conclusion, a stronger test of the potential distortions resulting from experimenter demand. Starting with the laboratory population, we demonstrate that even in a stark environment with deliberate researcher attempts …


The Impact Of Weather Shocks On Employment Outcomes: Evidence From South Africa, Harriet Margaret Brookes Gray, Vis Taraz, Simon Halliday Jan 2023

The Impact Of Weather Shocks On Employment Outcomes: Evidence From South Africa, Harriet Margaret Brookes Gray, Vis Taraz, Simon Halliday

Environmental Science and Policy: Faculty Publications

Climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, such as drought and heat waves. In this paper, we assess the impact of drought and high temperatures on the employment outcomes of working-age individuals in South Africa between 2008 and 2017. We merge high-resolution weather data with detailed individual-level survey data on labor market outcomes, and estimate causal impacts using a fixed effects framework. We find that increases in the occurrence of drought reduce overall employment. These effects are concentrated in the tertiary sector, amongst informal workers, and in provinces with a higher reliance on tourism. Taken together, our …