Research

Can coercive nation-building reshape identity itself, or only its public expression? We study Albania’s 1967 Cultural and Ideological Revolution, which banned religion nationwide and promoted the replacement of religious names with secular Albanian ones. The ban’s sharp implementation, in a multi-religious country with limited outside cultural influences, makes it a unique setting to study compliance and separate public versus private identity. Combining administrative and survey data, we examine the ban’s effects on naming, family behavior, and beliefs. We find that religious naming fell sharply after the ban—Christian names by 5 pp (20%) and Muslim names by 7 pp (26%)—while secular Albanian names rose by 11 pp (46%). Compliance was weaker among local religious minorities and stronger in districts with higher illiteracy. Out-group marriage increased by 1 pp (5%) for men exposed during their childhood. Post-ban cohorts report slightly lower religious socialization and democratic orientation, but no changes in current religiosity, nationalism, or economic ideology. Our results suggest that states can change the public equilibrium of identity without generating broader changes in private conviction.

This paper investigates whether a mother's extended provision of full-time childcare shapes her children's preferences for occupation choices. I analyze a natural experiment in the Czech Republic that extended parental allowances by one year. This induced many mothers to remain out of the workplace and caused them to face a higher likelihood of long-term unemployment. This shift reinforced a more traditional, mother-as-homemaker dynamic within households. Using a regression discontinuity design, I measure their children's later occupational preferences via their university applications. I find that boys who were exposed to the reform during early childhood were 20% less likely to apply to stereotypically feminine fields in adulthood, with no corresponding effect observed for girls.

We study whether positive aggregate income shocks in local economies in India have positive effects on firm size, as measured by number of workers. We proxy local aggregate income shocks with predicted agricultural yields, based on rainfall data and soil suitability for different crops, to obtain exogenous variation in local incomes. We find that positive agricultural shocks are related to larger firm size in the ensuing years, though not in the same year. We also find positive effects of the same agricultural shocks on consumption indices, as well as on ownership rates of durables and transport vehicles. The firm size effects are driven by firms in manufacturing, transport, telecommunications and hospitality sector, broadly in line with the consumption results. These results are consistent with positive demand shocks spurring creation of new jobs in firms.

The child penalty explains the majority of gender employment and wage gaps; however, less is known about the factors driving the child penalty itself. In this paper, we study the gender gap in childcare preferences as a potential factor that contributes to the child penalty. We surveyed Czech parents and elicited the minimal compensation they would require to stay home to care for a child. Mothers require less compensation for childcare than fathers. The estimated gender gap in childcare preferences is CZK 2,500 monthly, 7.6% of the median female wage, and cannot be explained by differences in labor market opportunities or prosocial motives to care for a family member.