Publications
[18] Ethnic Diversity and Cooperation: Evidence from a Lost Letter Experiment. (with Alexandra Kommol).
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2024, 50(18): 4600-4620.
[17] Cultural Adaptation and Demographic Change: Evidence from Mexican-American Naming Patterns During the California Gold Rush. (with Maria Abascal).
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2024, 50(1): 132 - 148.
[16] From Pluribus to Unum? The Civil War and Imagined Sovereignty in 19th Century America.
(with Melissa Lee and Tilmann Herchenröder).
American Political Science Review, 2024, 118(1): 127 - 143.
[15] Norms of Prejudice: Political Identity and Polarization.
(with Amalia Álvarez-Benjumea and Fabian Winter).
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2024, 379(1897): 20230030.
[14] The Effects of Combating Corruption on Institutional Trust and Political Engagement: Evidence from Latin America. (with Mathias Poertner).
Political Science Research and Methods, 2024, 12(3): 633 - 642.
[13] No Differential Effects of Classroom Ethnic Composition on Native and Immigrant Friendship Segregation: A Comment on Smith et al. 2016.
(with David Kretschmer, Johanna Gereke, and Fabian Winter).
American Journal of Sociology 2023, 129(2): 570–585.
[12] Observing Many Researchers Using the Same Data and Hypothesis Reveals a Hidden Universe of Uncertainty. (with Nate Breznau, Eike Mark Rinke, Alexander Wuttke, Hung H.V. Nguyen and 160 others).
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022, 119(44):e2203150119.
[11] Demographic change and group boundaries in Germany: The effect of projected demographic decline on perceptions of who has a migration background. (with Johanna Gereke and 14 others).
Sociological Science, 2022, 9(9):206-220.
[10] Everyday Discrimination in Public Spaces: A Field Experiment in the Milan Metro.
(with Johanna Gereke and Delia Baldassarri).
European Sociological Review, 2022, 38(5):679-693.
[9] Literacy and State-Society Interactions in 19th Century France. (with Melissa Lee).
American Journal of Political Science, 2020, 64(4): 1001-1016.
[8] Prosocial Behavior in Interethnic Encounters: Evidence from a Field Experiment with High- and Low-Status Immigrants. (with Amelie Aidenberger, Heiko Rauhut and Fabian Winter).
European Sociological Review, 2019, 35(4): 582–597.
[7] Social Norm Enforcement in Ethnically Diverse Communities. (with Fabian Winter).
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018, 115(11): 2722-2727.
[6] Institutions, Norms, and Accountability: A Corruption Experiment with Northern and Southern Italians.
Journal of Experimental Political Science, 2018, 5(1): 11-25.
[5] Legibility and the Informational Foundations of State Capacity. (with Melissa Lee).
The Journal of Politics, 2017, 79(1): 118–132.
[4] Willing to Pay? An Experimental Analysis of Tax Compliance in Britain and Italy.
(with Giulia Andrighetto, Stefania Ottone, Ferruccio Ponzano, and Sven Steinmo).
PLoS ONE, 2016, 11(2): e0150277.
[3] Are Some Countries More Honest than Others? Evidence from a Tax Compliance Experiment in Sweden and Italy. (with Giulia Andrighetto, John D’Attoma, Stefania Ottone, Ferruccio Ponzano, and Sven Steinmo).
Frontiers in Psychology, 2016, 7: 472.
[2] Changing a ‘Culture’ of Corruption: Evidence from an Economic Experiment in Italy.
Rationality & Society, 2015, 27(4): 387-413.
[1] “Political Culture” in the Oxford Companion to Comparative Politics. Joel Krieger (ed). (with David Laitin). New York: Oxford University Press.
Selected Working Papers
Military Service and Immigrants’ Assimilation: Evidence from the Vietnam Draft Lotteries.
(with Melissa Lee).
Abstract
Seminal theories in political science argue that military service is a critical driver of peripheral minorities’ integration into the mainstream. However, a major obstacle bedeviling the study of military service and integration is self-selection: individuals who are better assimilated may be more likely to join the military in the first place. We address the selection problem by examining the effects of military conscription during the Vietnam War using an instrumental variables approach. Conscription during 1970– 1972 was decided on the basis of national draft lotteries that assigned draft numbers based on an individual’s date of birth. Using the draft lottery instrument, we find no evidence of a causal effect of military service on a range of integration outcomes from the 2000 decennial census. At least for the Vietnam era, the link between service and integration is largely driven by self-selection, which points to important scope conditions for the integrationist view.Cross-cutting Cleavages and Native-Refugee Contact: Evidence from Germany.
(with Alexandra Kommol).
Abstract
The arrival of large numbers of asylum seekers in many European countries has raised critical questions concerning refugee integration. While prior research has examined individual characteristics (e.g. refugees’ educational attainment) and contextual conditions (e.g. local unemployment rates) as additive factors underlying social integration, we argue that complementarities between individual refugees and their place of resettlement can further enhance refugee-native contacts. Specifically, we focus on marital status as a key “milestone” shaping individuals’ social networks and study the influence of marital status similarity between indi- vidual refugees and their host communities. Using data from the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees and leveraging the exogenous assignment of asylum seekers in Germany, we show that marital status similarity increases refugee-native contacts for all refugee groups except single refugee men. Importantly, the effects of contextual similarity are especially pronounced amongst female refugees, a group which tends to report fewer interactions with natives in the first place. Overall, we conclude refugees may stand to benefit from allocation policies that take “contextual fit” into account when assigning asylum seekers to places of residence.The Upside of Prejudice: Do Muslims in Europe Enjoy a Religious Trust Premium?.
(with Joshua Hellyer, Yavar Fadavi Asghari, and Johanna Gereke).
Abstract
Muslim immigrants in European societies are often perceived as more religious than their Christian counterparts. Such traditional religiosity is seen as conflicting with modern, liberal values, thereby contributing to Islamophobia. However, could Muslims’ putative religiosity paradoxically increase their perceived trustworthiness? Drawing on research suggesting that religiosity signals benevolent intentions, we test whether religious Muslims indeed benefit from a “trust premium”. Combining insights from both population-based survey experiments and a lab-in-the-field experiment in Germany, we find that outwardly-religious Muslims are indeed (i) perceived as more trustworthy, and (ii) trusted more in monetary exchanges. The results indicate that perceived religiosity among Muslims in Europe may act as a social asset, thereby challenging prevailing narratives of Islam in Christian-heritage societies.The Girl Next Door? Childhood Cross-Group Exposure and Ethnic Inter-Marriage.
(with Leonard Wendering and Kerstin Ostermann).
Abstract
This study investigates the long-term effects of early-life inter-ethnic exposure on social integration outcomes focusing on the late 19th-century United States. Utilizing linked historical census data from 1880 and 1900, we analyze how the ethnic identity of childhood neighbors influences adult marriage choices. We employ hierarchical density-based spatial clustering to delineate historical ethnic neighborhoods, and use coarsened exact matching to identify “exposed” and “unexposed” individuals within the same urban geographies. Even after accounting for (parents’) residential choices, we find that individuals growing up next to an ethnic outgroup family are significantly more likely to marry into their childhood neighbor’s ethnic group. These results are broadly in line with Contact Theory, and highlight the enduring impact of early intergroup interactions on long-term social integration.Non-Compliance in Survey Experiments with Placebo Treatments.
(with Delia Baldassarri).