Research

I explore the mechanics of autonomy in a large-scale natural field experiment of effort provision with 4390 volunteers. I show that allowing volunteers to choose their tasks instead of randomly assigning tasks increases effort by 33 %, significantly improving effort quality. While this autonomy effect is unlikely to persist, the results suggest that it is cost-effective to motivate effort through autonomy rather than ex-post, competitive, and performance-contingent monetary rewards. Lastly, I provide causal evidence that the increase in effort occurs because volunteers match their abilities with the tasks and not because they value choice, care more about specific tasks, or feel a greater commitment to perform well when the choice is theirs. 

This paper examines whether and why charitable giving increases if donors have more choice about how their donations are used, in which choice consists of allowing donors to allocate their gift to three projects the way they prefer. In this project, I have partnered with the Down Syndrome Albania Foundation and 22 firms that support this NGO, and found that allowing donors to allocate their gifts increased giving mainly because they could target the projects they like. 

People often guide their present human capital decisions based on aspirations about the future, and sometimes, these decisions are inefficient because their aspirations are unrealistic. In collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Sports in Albania, this study proposes an individualized information intervention to change parents' unrealistic aspirations regarding their children's college education. The main research question is whether individualized information about the probability of college eligibility will affect the secondary education choices parents make for their children upon completing middle school, specifically in choosing between academic or vocational tracks. We hypothesize that parents misperceive their kids' chances of making it to college conditional on choosing the academic track and that updating their beliefs could change their aspirations and lead to more efficient secondary education decisions. Furthermore, this study explores the role of hope in shaping aspirations. Parents may harbor hope that their children will excel academically in high school, ultimately securing college admission. However, presenting individualized predictions about college eligibility based on (slightly/significantly) improved performance in high school may also impact parents' aspirations and actual decisions. We will then link the choices they make in the experiment with administrative data on actual enrollment decisions. Lastly, we plan to track the academic performance of treated and untreated kids in the first semesters of high school to test whether the individualized information provision will affect grades in the short/long-term.

We explore a continuous government intervention in Albanian primary and high schools that aims at teaching students coding through an engaging game-like environment. The main contribution of this project is to show that the coding intervention impacts performance in math and science tests, enhances critical thinking, but does not impact negatively the psychological and emotional well-being of kids. Further, comparing the impact of this intervention among primary school kids and high schoolers, we can add to the literature on the optimal timing of interventions in early to middle childhood development.