Browsing by Author "Vecci, Joseph"

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A Spatial Analysis of Foreign Aid and Civil Society
(2017-01) Vecci, Joseph; Zelinsky, Tomas; Dept. of Economics, University of Gothenburg
We use a Spatial Durbin Model to examine the relationship between civil society aid projects and measures of civil society including membership and participation in community groups and satisfaction with democracy in Nigeria and Uganda. We then study the effect of civil society aid programs on corruption, a proxy for elite capture. The spatial model allows us to estimate the effects of project spillovers that may indirectly impact non project areas. We find that civil society aid projects are associated with a decrease in the creation of community groups and attendance at community meetings in Nigeria. In Uganda, we find that civil society aid projects have a negative effect on the membership of community groups in neighboring areas. We also find that civil society projects have a positive effect on satisfaction with democracy, but they reduce satisfaction in neighbouring areas in both Nigeria and Uganda. Our corruption measures reveal that corruption has a positive direct correlation with civil society aid projects in Uganda. A number of robustness measures are used to account for selection.
Female empowerment and male backlash: Experimental evidence from India
(2024-11) Cullen, Claire; Sarthak, Josh; Vecci, Joseph; Talbot-Jones, Julia; Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg
Public spending on gender equality and women’s empowerment is rising rapidly in many countries. However, the unintended consequences of women’s empowerment is rarely measured and remains poorly understood. We study the impact of female empowerment programs on male backlash through a series of experiments involving 1,007 households in rural India. The paper has four key parts. First, we use an experiment to measure backlash, observing men’s decisions to financially penalize women who participated in empowerment programs.We find that men pay to punish empowered women at double the rate of women in an otherwise identical control group (17 percent versus 8 percent). We also show that men engaging in backlash tend to hold more conservative gender attitudes and are more likely to accept or commit intimate partner violence. Second, we test multiple theories on the conditions that trigger backlash and find that backlash occurs regardless of how women become empowered. Third, we examine social image concerns as a potential behavioral mechanism and find that 18 percent of men are willing to pay to conceal their household’s involvement in empowerment programs. Those who choose to conceal are more likely to engage in backlash, suggesting that reputational concerns play a key role in driving this behavior. Finally, we test several policies to reduce backlash and find that reframing empowerment programs to emphasize broader community benefits can help mitigate backlash.
Social Identity and Role Models
(2016-09) Vecci, Joseph; Zelinsky, Tomas; Dept. of Economics, University of Gothenburg
We present a lab-in-the-field experiment and surveys of marginalised Roma children in Slovakia to examine whether reminding Roma of their ethnicity reduces their performance in a cognitive task. Research on social identity and stereotypes has documented that when individuals feel their social group is negatively stereotyped in a domain their performance declines, which can reinforce discrimination. In an effort to break the cycle of negative stereotypes we remind Roma of either Roma or non-Roma role models. We find that the activation of a Roma's ethnicity reduces cognitive performance. In contrast Roma exposed to Roma role models outperform those reminded of their ethnicity and also non-Roma role models. We then attempt to understand the channels through which social identity and role models effect performance. We show that priming a Roma's identity has a direct effect on confidence, decreasing performance.
Would I lie to you? Strategic deception in the face of uncertain penalties
(2017-01) Cardak, Buly A; Neelim, Ananta; Vecci, Joseph; Wu, Kevin; Dept. of Economics, University of Gothenburg
Using an experiment we investigate the effect of different centralised punishment mechanisms on deception and beliefs about deception in a principal-agent interaction that resembles many everyday expert advisor - client relationships. Agents have private information to transmit to Principals who must decide whether to follow Agent advice. Across our treatments, Agents face a range of expected penalties for deceptive behaviour with varying severity and monitoring probability. The Bayesian Nash equilibrium of the principal-agent interaction predicts penalties to have no effect on Agent behaviour. We find the magnitude of penalties to have important deterrent effects on deceptive Agent behaviour while Agents do not respond to changes in monitoring probabilities. Principal following behaviour increases in response to high penalties. However, it is unaffected by equivalent increases in monitoring. To help us understand the mechanism through which penalties deter deceptive behaviour, we test whether framing activates norms, providing an additional deterrence effect. We find norms are only activated by large penalties, providing a possible explanation for the impact of penalties on deceptive behaviour.