Gender discrimination in South Asia is a well-documented fact. However, gender is only one of an individual's many identities. This paper investigates how gender discrimination depends on the social identities of interacting parties. We use an experimental approach to identify gender...

We investigate the determinants of students' university choice, with a focus on expected monetary returns, non-pecuniary factors enjoyed at school, and financial constraints, in the Pakistani context. To mitigate the identification problem concerning the separation of preferences, expectations,...

This paper investigates how attitudes toward the United States are affected by the provision of information. We use an experimentally generated panel of attitudes, obtained by providing urban Pakistanis with fact-based statements describing the United States in either a positive or negative...

Madrassas (Islamic religious seminaries) have been alleged to be responsible for fostering Islamic extremism and violence, and for indoctrinating their students in narrow worldviews. However, we know very little about the behavior of Madrassa students, and how other groups in their communities...

Understanding the formation of consumer inflation expectations is considered crucial for managing monetary policy. This paper investigates how consumers form and update their inflation expectations using a unique information experiment embedded in a survey. We first elicit respondents'...

More than three-quarters of U.S. households bear consumer debt, yet we have little understanding of the relationship between financial education and the debt behavior of U.S. consumers. In this paper, we study the effects of exposure to financial training on debt outcomes in early adulthood....

We investigate the impact of large swings in the housing market on nonmortgage borrowing, including student, credit card, auto, and home equity debts. For this purpose, we use CoreLogic geographic house price variation, matched with rich data on consumer liabilities from the Equifax-sourced...

Standard observed characteristics explain only part of the differences between men and women in education choices and labor market trajectories. Using an experiment to derive students' levels of overconfidence, and preferences for competitiveness and risk, this paper investigates whether these...

This paper presents new survey evidence on workers' response to the 2011 payroll tax cuts. While workers intended to spend 10 to 18 percent of their tax-cut income, they reported actually spending 28 to 43 percent of the funds. This is higher than estimates from studies of recent tax cuts, and...

Despite a robust college premium, college attendance rates in the United States have remained stagnant and exhibit a substantial socioeconomic gradient. We focus on information gaps - specifically, incomplete information about college benefits and costs - as a potential explanation for these...