Browsing by Author "Eckel, Catherine"

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Collaborative Research: Identity, Stereotype Threat, and Black College Student Success
Economics; TAMU; https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14641/634; National Science Foundation
The proposed studies will explore, in depth, heterogeneity in the vulnerability of black college students to stereotype threat, and the way in which incentives can mitigate the impact of the threat. Stereotype threat occurs when members of a social group, in a given situation, feel themselves to be at risk of confirming a negative stereotype about their group and therefore perform less well, especially on important or difficult tasks. The study will contribute to knowledge about stereotype threat by identifying factors that contribute to or mitigate the threat and the consequences of stereotype threat vulnerability, and by developing a policy designed to combat its effects on black college students. It addresses one of the most important questions in the study of human capital investment today, which is why black students underperform and as a result are more likely to fail to complete a college degree. In this proposal the principal investigators plan a series of lab experimental studies that will explore the interaction between stereotype threat and two types of incentives: piece rates and prizes. The project will explore the relationship among a set of key factors that are likely to be responsible for the differences in vulnerability to stereotype threat, and carefully explore the impact of incentives and their interaction with stereotype threat. The proposal has high policy relevance because it can inform the development of interventions to enhance the performance of black students enrolled at institutions with varying demographic distributions.
COVID-19: RAPID: Collaborative Research: The Impact of COVID-19 on Norms, Risk-taking, Information, and Trust
Economics; TAMU; https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14641/634; National Science Foundation
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has hit countries around the world hard and is likely to have both short-run and long-run impacts on health behaviors, social norms, and trust in government and other organizations. In the short run, governments and health organizations provide extensive information and recommend behavior to avoid contracting the disease and spreading it to others. This research involves surveys to figure out whether and to what extent people follow recommendations and change behavior. Because the research team has been following a sample of university students for several years, the team already knows a lot about them, and this facilitates an understanding of variation in compliance with recommendations. For example, risk-tolerance and trust in organizations are likely to matter. The team is exploring how people process information about the virus, and how that affects their beliefs about the risks to themselves and others. The researchers also are examining the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on social norms, and how those change over time. The second wave of the study looks for longer run impacts. The results of this study will be useful in shaping future policies and communications about health risks, especially during epidemics and other health crises. The researchers make use of previous samples of subjects to test the impact of COVID-19 information and recommendations on behavior, social norms, trust in each other and institutions, and risk-tolerance. They have four areas of study. The first is how people process ?noisy? information in the context of COVID-19. Prior research by a team member has shown that some individuals tend to misunderstand such information to their benefit. The teams adapt the methodology and protocol of the prior work to examine how individuals interpret COVID-19 information, and how this affects their beliefs about their own vulnerabilities. Second, the team studies the impact of COVID-19 on norms of behavior, including those directly related to the virus (social distancing, hand-washing), as well as norms of trust, sharing and in-group favoritism that may be shifting or newly emerging in response to COVID19. Prior work by a team member developed a methodology for eliciting social norms, and has shown that norms evolve in response to social influence. Third, they explore the impact of COVID-19 on interpersonal trust and trust in institutions, which significantly impacts willingness to follow government and organizational recommendations. Prior work by team members used incentivized games and surveys to study trust and reciprocity in natural disaster settings. Finally, they look at risk perception and risk taking related to COVID-19. Using incentivized measures of risk tolerance, and survey measures of domain-specific risk perceptions and behavior, the team explores the relationship between risk aversion and behavior, but also how the advent of COVID-19 has changed preferences for risk-taking. In these ways prior knowledge about the subjects provides an opportunity to study the impact of a national health catastrophe on information processing, social norms, trust and reciprocity and risk-taking. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Escaping Secular Stagnation with Unconventional Policy
Economics; TAMU; https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14641/634; National Science Foundation
This research project uses laboratory experiments to understand periods of prolonged low economic growth, as distinct from cyclical low-growth periods. The goal of the project is to simulate an economy in the laboratory within which we can trigger a permanent decline in economic activity along with falling prices, and then to explore various policy interventions that have the potential to repair the stagnant economy. In particular, the project focuses on what actions policy makers can take (monetary and fiscal policy) to restore the experimental economy to full employment. The research explores whether the timing and contextual communication of policy can influence the efficacy of policy. The laboratory experiments in this project are designed to explore secular stagnation in a closed economy. Specifically, the research implements a recent formalization of secular stagnation that uses an overlapping-generations structure to break the representative agent assumption and allow for endogenous bouts of activity at the zero lower bound (ZLB). Exogenous deleveraging shocks can trigger spending gluts that create deflation, and lead to a secular stagnation equilibrium, which can be unique. The objective of the research is to identify whether deflationary and inflationary equilibria emerge when they are unique, and to explore equilibrium selection when multiple equilibria exist. Additionally, the project investigates the ability of monetary policy, in the form of inflation targeting, and fiscal policy, consisting of "helicopter drops" financed using lump-sum taxes levied on the middle-aged cohort in our experimental economy, to pull the economy out of a deflationary equilibrium following a debt-deleveraging shock. Both potential remedies improve economic conditions through an expectations channel by making households more optimistic about future economic conditions. Finally, the project studies the effect of variation in both the timing and contextual communication of policy. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.