• Paid With(out) Purpose: Costs of Poor Matches on the Meaning of Work

Abstract: Recent reporting and studies in Economics discuss meaning or purpose as an important dimension of work. Like location, culture, or benefits, work meaning may enter idiosyncratically into a worker's utility function and affect work choices on both extensive and intensive margins. I replicate and extend the findings of other studies that workers have lower reservation pay amounts for tasks framed as meaningful (relative to the same task not framed as meaningful), even absent a firm-framing context. However, mine and other studies have used a constant, top-down, inflexible assignment of "meaningful" and "non-meaningful" task framing in our designs, not allowing for variation in worker perception of and taste for meaning. I therefore investigate potential costs of poor matching of worker and task on this dimension of meaning allowing for heterogeneity in both worker perception of and preference for meaning.

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• Benefits on the Bench: Workfare, Mental Health, and the Role of the Team

with Carlos Brito​

Abstract: Recent studies have found large positive effects of working compared to pure cash transfers on various measures of mental health for labor demand-constrained populations. We hypothesize that some such benefits could stem from belonging to and training with a team even if one is not ultimately selected to work, which we term as “being on the bench”. This study proposes a novel field experiment to investigate the effects of being placed on the bench by a randomized employment lottery for forcibly displaced Venezuelan migrants in Roraima, a Brazilian border state. This population is understood to have both high unemployment and job-seeking as well as poor mental health, making them both appropriate and necessary to study. As we expect these effects to operate through alignment with the meaningfulness or mission of work being trained for, we introduce variation in the meaningfulness of tasks offered. Similar to previous studies, we also include a cash transfer treatment arm and pure control for comparison.​​​​​

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• Evaluating the Impact of Social Norms, Signaling and Decision Empowerment on Graduate Employment Decisions About Low Paying Jobs: a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial in Ghana

with Grace Abban-Ampiah, Martin M. Tuuli, Richard K. Boso, Joseph Ofori-Dankwa, and Leïla Njee Bugha 

​Abstract: ​ Graduate unemployment in Ghana remains a pressing concern, despite rising tertiary education attainment. Less-explored explanations include the influence of social expectations as well as perceptions about the negative signal taking up certain jobs may communicate to future employers. These factors may delay labor market entry and contribute to underemployment. An additional factor may be lack of graduate empowerment to make employment decisions with skills such as communication and self confidence, which are crucial for navigating early labor markets. Taken together, these soft skills are especially critical when job opportunities do not align neatly with graduates’ expectations or social validation. Few interventions in Ghana have targeted such psychosocial readiness and adaptive capabilities needed to succeed in a dynamic job market. This pilot addresses a major policy gap in the design of youth employment interventions, which often focus on skills or job creation while underestimating social and behavioral constraints. Ghana’s National Youth Policy and initiatives, like the National Service Scheme (NSA), and YouStart, prioritize job readiness and inclusion, yet struggle to ensure job uptake and sustainability. Our pilot complements these efforts by testing soft skills-oriented, psychosocially supportive, and cost-effective interventions.