How stories, memory, and cognitive limits shape the beliefs people hold about the economy and society — and how information is transmitted, recalled, and distorted along the way.
Attention to the Macroeconomy (with Sebastian Link, Andreas Peichl, Oliver Pfäuti and Johannes Wohlfart) Conditionally accepted, Quarterly Journal of Economics
Explanations (with Thomas Graeber and Constantin Schesch) Working paper
Learning from False Stories (with Robin Musolff and Florian Zimmermann) Working paper
Coarse Categories in a Complex World (with Thomas Graeber and Marco Sammon) Working paper
The Transmission of Reliable and Unreliable Information (with Thomas Graeber and Shakked Noy) Accepted, Quarterly Journal of Economics
Narratives about the Macroeconomy (with Peter Andre, Ingar Haaland, Mirko Wiederholt and Johannes Wohlfart) Review of Economic Studies, 2026
Stories, Statistics, and Memory (with Thomas Graeber and Florian Zimmermann) Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2024
Opinions as Facts (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Aakaash Rao and David Yanagizawa-Drott) Review of Economic Studies, 2023
Subjective Models of the Macroeconomy: Evidence From Experts and Representative Samples (with Peter Andre, Carlo Pizzinelli and Johannes Wohlfart) Review of Economic Studies, 2022
How households and firms form expectations about inflation, unemployment, house prices, and their own labor-market options, and how those beliefs feed back into economic behavior.
Attention to the Macroeconomy (with Sebastian Link, Andreas Peichl, Oliver Pfäuti and Johannes Wohlfart) Conditionally accepted, Quarterly Journal of Economics
Macro Theory with Measured Expectations (with Ralph Luetticke, Mirko Wiederholt and Johannes Wohlfart) Working paper
Home Price Expectations and Spending: Evidence From a Field Experiment (with Felix Chopra and Johannes Wohlfart) American Economic Review, 2025
Worker Beliefs about Outside Options (with Simon Jäger, Nina Roussille and Benjamin Schoefer) Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2024
Uncertainty and Information Acquisition: Evidence from Firms and Households (with Heiner Mikosch, Samad Sarferaz and Johannes Wohlfart) American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2024
Information Frictions Among Firms and Households (with Sebastian Link, Andreas Peichl and Johannes Wohlfart) Journal of Monetary Economics, 2023
Subjective Models of the Macroeconomy: Evidence From Experts and Representative Samples (with Peter Andre, Carlo Pizzinelli and Johannes Wohlfart) Review of Economic Studies, 2022
Risk Exposure and Acquisition of Macroeconomic Information (with Sonja Settele and Johannes Wohlfart) American Economic Review: Insights, 2022
Beliefs about Public Debt and the Demand for Government Spending (with Sonja Settele and Johannes Wohlfart) Journal of Econometrics, 2022
Coronavirus Perceptions and Economic Anxiety (with Thiemo Fetzer, Lukas Hensel and Johannes Hermle) Review of Economics and Statistics, 2021
How Do Expectations About the Macroeconomy Affect Personal Expectations and Behavior? (with Johannes Wohlfart) Review of Economics and Statistics, 2020
Labor Market Concerns and Support for Immigration (with Ingar Haaland) Journal of Public Economics, 2020
How social image, norms, and the behavior of others shape individual choices — from political expression and prejudice to the adoption of new technologies.
Tipping Points and Australia's Social Media Ban (with Leo Bursztyn, Angela Duckworth, Rafael Jiménez-Durán, Aaron Leonard, Filip Milojević and Cass Sunstein) Working paper
Non-User Externalities (with Leo Bursztyn, Jan Fasnacht, Benjamin Handel, Rafael Jiménez-Durán, Aaron Leonard, Filip Milojević and Cass Sunstein) Working paper
Non-User Utility and Market Power: The Case of Smartphones (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Rafael Jiménez-Durán, Aaron Leonard and Filip Milojević) Working paper
Explanations (with Thomas Graeber and Constantin Schesch) Working paper
Measuring Markets for Network Goods (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Matthew Gentzkow, Rafael Jiménez-Durán, Aaron Leonard and Filip Milojević) Accepted, Review of Economic Studies
The Transmission of Reliable and Unreliable Information (with Thomas Graeber and Shakked Noy) Accepted, Quarterly Journal of Economics
Social Dynamics of AI Adoption in Parents' Educational Decisions (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Alex Imas, Rafael Jiménez-Durán and Aaron Leonard) Accepted, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
When Product Markets Become Collective Traps: The Case of Social Media (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Benjamin Handel and Rafael Jiménez-Durán) American Economic Review, 2025
Justifying Dissent (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Georgy Egorov, Ingar Haaland and Aakaash Rao) Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2023
Interregional Contact and the Formation of a Shared Identity (with Manuel Bagues) American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2023
Beliefs about Racial Discrimination and Support for Pro-Black Policies (with Ingar Haaland) Review of Economics and Statistics, 2023
Global Behaviors, Perceptions, and the Emergence of Social Norms at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic (with Lukas Hensel, Thiemo Fetzer, Marc Witte, Jon Jachimowicz, Johannes Haushofer, Andriy Ivchenko, Stefano Caria, Elena Reutskaja, Stefano Fiorin, Margarita Gómez, Gordon Kraft-Todd, Friedrich Götz and Erez Yoeli) Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2022
Scapegoating During Crises (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Georgy Egorov, Ingar Haaland and Aakaash Rao) AEA Papers & Proceedings, 2022
Does Information Change Attitudes Towards Immigrants? (with Alexis Grigorieff and Diego Ubfal) Demography, 2020
Experienced Inequality and Preferences for Redistribution (with Johannes Wohlfart) Journal of Public Economics, 2018
The demand for news and the economics of digital media: why people consume the news they do, how AI reshapes it, and when social-media markets trap users in outcomes no one wants.
News Customization with AI (with Felix Chopra, Ingar Haaland, Fabian Roeben and Vanessa Sticher) Revise and resubmit, Review of Economic Studies
Measuring Markets for Network Goods (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Matthew Gentzkow, Rafael Jiménez-Durán, Aaron Leonard and Filip Milojević) Accepted, Review of Economic Studies
When Product Markets Become Collective Traps: The Case of Social Media (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Benjamin Handel and Rafael Jiménez-Durán) American Economic Review, 2025
Tipping Points and Australia's Social Media Ban (with Leo Bursztyn, Angela Duckworth, Rafael Jiménez-Durán, Aaron Leonard, Filip Milojević and Cass Sunstein) Working paper
Non-User Externalities (with Leo Bursztyn, Jan Fasnacht, Benjamin Handel, Rafael Jiménez-Durán, Aaron Leonard, Filip Milojević and Cass Sunstein) Working paper
Non-User Utility and Market Power: The Case of Smartphones (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Rafael Jiménez-Durán, Aaron Leonard and Filip Milojević) Working paper
The Demand for News: Accuracy Concerns versus Belief Confirmation Motives (with Felix Chopra and Ingar Haaland) The Economic Journal, 2024
Do People Demand Fact-Checked News? Evidence From U.S. Democrats (with Felix Chopra and Ingar Haaland) Journal of Public Economics, 2022
News Consumption in the Digital Age (with Francesco Capozza, Ingar Haaland and Johannes Wohlfart) In preparation for the Annual Review of Economics
Field experiments on what drives political participation — whether activists are moved by instrumental incentives or by expressive and social motives, and how group size and party competition affect mobilization.
Voice and Political Engagement: Evidence From a Field Experiment (with Anselm Hager, Lukas Hensel and Andreas Stegmann) Review of Economics and Statistics, 2025
Political Activists as Free-Riders: Evidence From a Natural Field Experiment (with Anselm Hager, Lukas Hensel and Johannes Hermle) The Economic Journal, 2023
Political Activists are Not Driven by Instrumental Motives: Evidence from Two Natural Field Experiments (with Anselm Hager, Lukas Hensel and Johannes Hermle) Accepted, British Journal of Political Science
Group Size and Protest Mobilization across Movements and Countermovements (with Anselm Hager, Lukas Hensel and Johannes Hermle) American Political Science Review, 2022
Does Party Competition Affect Political Activism? (with Anselm Hager, Lukas Hensel and Johannes Hermle) The Journal of Politics, 2021
Tools and best practices for measuring beliefs and running experiments: information-provision designs, open-ended survey data, bounding experimenter demand, and the credibility of published results.
The Social Desirability Atlas (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Ingar Haaland and Nicolas Roever) Accepted, Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics
Understanding Economic Behavior Using Open-ended Survey Data (with Ingar Haaland, Stefanie Stantcheva and Johannes Wohlfart) Journal of Economic Literature, 2025
Evaluating Behavioral Interventions at Scale with AI (with Felix Chopra, Ingar Haaland and Nicolas Roever) Revise and resubmit, Economic Journal
The Null Result Penalty (with Felix Chopra, Ingar Haaland and Andreas Stegmann) The Economic Journal, 2024
Designing Information Provision Experiments (with Ingar Haaland and Johannes Wohlfart) Journal of Economic Literature, 2023
Information Experiments (with Ingar Haaland, Julian König and Johannes Wohlfart) Encyclopedia of Experimental Social Science
Measuring and Bounding Experimenter Demand (with Jon de Quidt and Johannes Haushofer) American Economic Review, 2018
The economics of mental health — stigma, misperceptions about the effectiveness of treatment, and the effects of economic shocks on psychological well-being.
Depression Stigma (with Peter Schwardmann and Egon Tripodi) Journal of Public Economics, 2026
Misperceived Effectiveness and the Demand for Psychotherapy (with Peter Schwardmann and Egon Tripodi) Journal of Public Economics, 2024
Global Behaviors, Perceptions, and the Emergence of Social Norms at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic (with Lukas Hensel, Thiemo Fetzer, Marc Witte, Jon Jachimowicz, Johannes Haushofer, Andriy Ivchenko, Stefano Caria, Elena Reutskaja, Stefano Fiorin, Margarita Gómez, Gordon Kraft-Todd, Friedrich Götz and Erez Yoeli) Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2022
Income Shocks and Suicides: Causal Evidence From Indonesia (with Cornelius Christian and Lukas Hensel) Review of Economics and Statistics, 2019