New PhD thesis on economic preferences

On Thursday 26 September 2024 Akshay Arun Moorthy will hold a trial lecture on a prescribed topic and defend his thesis for the PhD degree at NHH.

Akshay Moorthy´s thesis consists of three papers related to the identification, heterogeneity, and formative mechanisms of economic preferences. The papers draw on insights and methods from behavioural and experimental economics, the economics of culture and identity, political economy, comparative development, and psychology.

The first chapter studies whether people have preferences over the social identity of information sources. This is an important empirical question as ignoring valuable information because of the messenger’s identity could lead to adverse outcomes such as poor decision making or belief polarisation.

Through online experiments using both naturally occurring and experimentally assigned identities, the paper shows that when information quality is known, the messenger’s identity does not influence learning. The results suggest that policy communication could improve by making information quality salient and anonymising information delivery as much as possible.

Essays in Moral Decisions

On Thursday 12 September 2024 Jareef Bin Martuza will hold a trial lecture on a prescribed topic and defend his thesis for the PhD degree at NHH.

The second chapter studies preferences for paternalistic policies. These policies - which are at the heart of the citizen-state relationship – may constrain people’s freedom to choose. A survey experiment in 58 countries reveals a preference for soft over hard paternalism, with striking variation between countries. We document systematic differences in paternalistic preferences by demographics, income, economic security, and democratic quality. The results point to the importance of understanding the heterogeneity in paternalistic preferences and provide a foundation for future work on the determinants of support for paternalistic policies.

The third chapter examines how macroeconomic shocks affect people’s fairness preferences. Understanding these preferences is important as they shape attitudes towards inequality and redistribution in societies. The analysis shows that individuals who have experienced poor economic performance are more meritocratic – they are more likely to accept inequality when the source of inequality is merit rather than luck. The paper also shows how these effects vary based on the type and timing of the shocks.