Research
Working Papers
Foreign Peers in Higher Education: The Effects of Internationalization on Native Students’ Academic Outcomes with Melisa L. Diaz Lema - SSRN Paper (Under Review)
Internationalization is widely promoted in higher education, yet it may entail tradeoffs for native students. While greater diversity can enhance the educational experience, changes in peer composition may reduce learning quality when students differ in cultural and academic backgrounds. This paper examines the effects of internationalization on the academic outcomes of native students. Using administrative panel data from a large public STEM university in Italy, we follow over 33,000 students across 17 programs and six cohorts. We exploit the introduction of an English parallel track in Civil Engineering using an instrumented difference-indifferences approach. The English track more than doubled the share of foreign students in the Civil Engineering program relative to the other primarily Italian-taught programs. We then examine the overall effect of expanding the English track and find that native students, regardless of whether they enroll in the Italian or English track, are less likely to drop out and more likely to graduate on time, although they achieve a slightly lower GPA. Further analysis of mechanisms reveals that international student inflows drive graduation gains, while larger classes and other changes to the learning environment explain the GPA decline. Our findings indicate that internationalization policies can improve native students' persistence and timely degree completion in higher education.
Identifying a Cumulative Learning Technology: Evidence from Online Learning - NBER Conference Paper
An inherent feature of learning in most disciplines, especially STEM, is its cumulative structure, which makes developing advanced skills challenging. This paper credibly estimates a dynamic learning technology of student effort in a foundational university course with a cumulative structure. Doing so is incredibly difficult because effort inputs are typically unobserved and are dynamic endogenous choices. To address this, I use rich panel data on nearly 3,700 undergraduates in an online introductory programming course, which precisely tracks study time throughout the course. Then I carry out a field experiment which generates period-by-period exogenous variation in effort allocation, enabling me to identify dynamic interactions across effort inputs in the learning technology. I find evidence of dynamic learning complementarities as the marginal benefit to studying in each learning period is increasing in prior knowledge accumulated. I then develop and estimate a multi-stage behavioral model of effort supply, using the experiment to identify benefit and cost parameters at each stage. The model informs policy simulations of grading schemes, showing that decreasing assignment weights across the course—rather than equal weights—boosts effort early on when foundational skills are acquired. The findings in this study have implications for effective learning strategies and approaches to course design.
Language Proficiency in Audit Experiments: Evidence from Rental Housing Markets with Cornel Nesseler and Jiaqi Zou - Paper
Audit studies are widely used to examine frictions in immigrants’ access to core markets, yet typically abstract from limited language proficiency, using native-like fluency for locals and foreigners alike. We vary language proficiency in rental housing search to benchmark language-limitation penalties against name-origin disadvantage. In a large-scale field experiment in four Central European countries, we send fictitious apartment‑viewing requests, randomly varying local‑language proficiency, name origin, and a language-learning signal. We find no measurable benefit of functional local-language proficiency relative to English for foreign names, nor from signaling local-language learning. With fluency, however, foreign names’ success rates nearly double. While native-sounding names still receive slightly higher response rates, the name-origin gap disappears when foreign applicants follow up with non-responders. Surveying residents reveals that foreigners underestimate the returns to attaining local-language fluency by 50%, on average. Our results highlight the importance of language fluency and persistence in meaningfully reducing integration frictions.
Provision of Online Public Goods: Evidence From a Peer Discussion Board - Paper
How can policy designers sustain active participation in online communities despite free-riding incentives? This paper addresses the question in the context of voluntary online student discussion boards -- a prominent feature of large classrooms and distance education used to support learning at scale. Using survey and administrative data from nearly 1,200 undergraduates in a foundational programming course at a large public university, I measure students' altruistic attitudes and track their reading and posting behavior. Two randomized informational interventions are implemented: one informing students about the discussion board’s availability, and another encouraging them to internalize the spillover value of peer discussion. Both interventions increase sign-ups and contributions, respectively. I find that access to and participation in the board significantly improve learning outcomes. Using a behavioural model of student contributions, I argue that having targeted bonus credit for instructor-endorsed posts can effectively reduce free-riding, enhance the value-added of the discussion board.
Don’t let your fruits rot: An experimental investigation of leadership training in a grocery store with Simone Haeckl and Mari Rege (Paper available upon request)
Despite widespread use, evidence on the effectiveness of leadership training is limited. We study the effects of a state-of-the-art online leadership program in a retail chain with 159 stores and over 1000 employees. We use an event study approach to test the effects of the training, controlling for seasonal effects. We find no impact of the training on customer satisfaction, food waste, or a measure of store profitability. In addition, we run an RCT to test whether we can improve the effectiveness by addressing two behavioral barriers to learning motivation. First, leaders may doubt their own and their employees' capacity for skill development. Second, they might underinvest in training due to present bias. All stores received the training, with random assignment to the standard or enhanced version. The enhanced version also showed no greater effect on productivity than the standard one. Leaders in the enhanced group reported being more supportive several months post-training. Still, we find no effect on employees’ work satisfaction, intention to quit, or turnover.
Supportive Leadership and Employee Satisfaction and Retention: Causal Evidence from a Large Grocery Store Chain with Jon-Sander Amland and Mari Rege (Paper available upon request)
Can supportive leadership improve employee retention? While prior research documents correlations between leadership and retention, causal evidence remains limited. We estimate the causal effect of supportive leadership on employee retention using two complementary approaches. First, we apply an employee fixed-effects model to control for time-invariant employee characteristics. Second, we employ a jackknife instrumental variables strategy to address time-varying confounders. Drawing on rich data from around 1800 employees across 202 stores in a large Norwegian retail chain, we find that supportive leadership significantly improves employee well-being and retention. Both identification strategies yield consistent results. Policy simulations further suggest that training a low-support leader to average supportiveness can substantially increase retention. Our findings underscore the importance of supportive leadership for engaging and retaining employees.
Work in Progresss
Psychological Safety and Employee Satisfaction and Retention: Causal Evidence from a Large Grocery Store Chain with Jon-Sander Amland, Simone Haeckl, and Mari Rege
This paper examines the effect of psychological safety—the belief that employees can voice opinions and explore ideas without fear of negative consequences—on well-being and retention. Using panel data from a large Norwegian retail chain with 202 stores, we address endogeneity through two complementary identification strategies: individual fixed effects and a jackknife instrumental variables approach. The fixed-effects model controls for time-invariant heterogeneity, while the jackknife-IV strategy addresses time-varying confounders in separate analyses. Our most conservative estimates indicate that a one–standard deviation increase in psychological safety raises job satisfaction by 0.23 SD, reduces quit intentions by 8 percent, and lowers actual turnover by 3 percentage points. These findings highlight the importance of psychologically safe work environments for enhancing employee well-being and retention.
Encouraging High-achieving Students to Enroll in Advanced Courses, with Robert McMillan and Linda Wang
Misinformed high-achieving students may enroll in less challenging university courses, limiting future options and hindering their human capital development. This paper examines whether such students can be guided toward more ambitious academic paths. We conduct several field experiments across four cohorts of first-year economics students at a large Canadian research university, varying how students are informed about advanced upper-year courses. The interventions differ in their scalability. We find that an intensive in-person information session substantially increases enrollment in the most rigorous second-year economics courses, particularly among first-generation students who are initially less aware of these options. In contrast, delivering the same information via email or online sessions has no significant effect. The results suggest that personalized, resource-intensive nudges can meaningfully influence course choices, with implications for university advising and policy design.
From Autopilot to Co-Pilot: Guiding Effective AI Use in Higher Education with Ajinkya Keskar, Ozlem Tonguc, and Case Tatro