Selected Publications
Human-centred mechanism design with democratic AI (with R. Koster et al.)
Nature Human Behaviour, 2022, vol. 6, pp. 1398-1407
Achieving gender balance at all levels of your company (with S. Chilazi and I. Bohnet)
Harvard Business Review, 2021
Ideology selectively shapes attention to inequality (with H. Waldfogel et al.)
PNAS, 2021, vol. 118
Social dilemmas among unequals (with C. Hilbe, K. Chatterjee and M. A. Nowak)
Nature, 2019, vol. 572, pp. 524-527
How to design (and analyze) a business experiment (with M. Luca)
Harvard Business Review, 2015
Cooperating with the future (with D. G. Rand, A. Peysakhovich, M. A. Nowak)
Nature, 2014, vol. 511, pp. 220-223
(For a list of all publications, see below.)
Working Papers
(Please email me at o.hauser@exeter.ac.uk for most recent drafts.)
Beliefs about gender differences in social preferences (with C. Exley, M. Moore and J.-H. Pezzuto) [Working Paper].
Reject & Resubmit at Quarterly Journal of Economics.
Selected media coverage: HBS Working Knowledge.
Generative AI enhances individual creativity but reduces the collective diversity of novel content (with A. R. Doshi) [Working Paper].
Revise & Resubmit at Science Advances.
Selected media coverage: Forbes, The Conversation.
Gender-inclusive language and economic decision-making (with L. Balafoutas, H. Fornwagner and E. Hauser) [Working Paper].
Revise & Resubmit at Management Science.
Closing the gender gap in re-applications for senior roles (with I. Bohnet, H.-Y. Chai and K. Louw).
Reject & Resubmit at Management Science.
Selective insensitivity to income held by the richest (with B. Szaszi, H. Habibnia, J. Tan and J. M. Jachimowicz).
Revise & Resubmit at PNAS Nexus.
Do followers mind the pay gap? An experimental test of the impact of the vertical pay gap on leader effectiveness (with K. Peters, M. Fonseca and N. Steffens).
Revise & Resubmit at The Leadership Quarterly.
Inequality in people’s minds (with L. T. Phillips, S. J. Tepper, D. Goya-Tocchetto, S. Davidai, N. Ordabayeva, M. U. Mirza, B. Szaszi, M. V. Day and J. M. Jachimowicz).
Revise & Resubmit at Personality and Social Psychology Review. [Working Paper]
How effective is (more) money? Randomizing unconditional cash transfer amounts in the US (with A. Jaroszewicz, J. M. Jachimowicz and J. Jamison) [Working Paper]
Selected media coverage: Vox, Forbes, NBC News, Slate.
Using deep reinforcement-learning to discover a dynamic resource allocation policy that promotes sustainable human exchange (with R. Koster, M. Pîslar, A. Tacchetti, J. Balaguer, L. Liu, R. Elie, K. Tuyls, M. Botvinick and C. Summerfield)
Dynamics of cooperation in concurrent games (with C. L. Rossetti and C. Hilbe)
Can gender and race dynamics in performance appraisals be disrupted? The role of social influence (with I. Bohnet and A. Kristal) [Working Paper]
Academic Publications
Intergenerational public goods and environmental economics
28. Voting sustains intergenerational cooperation, even when the tipping point threshold is ambiguous (with B. Balmford and M. Marino) [Link | PDF]
Environmental and Resource Economics, 2023
27. Human-centred mechanism design with democratic AI (with R. Koster, J. Balaguer, A. Tachetti, A. Weinstein, T. Zhu, D. Williams, L. Campbell-Gillingham, P. Thacker, M. Botvinick and C. Summerfield) [Link | PDF]
Nature Human Behaviour, 2022, vol. 6, pp. 1398-1407
Selected media coverage: Forbes, VICE, NewScientist.
26. Climate action for (my) children (with Helena Fornwagner) [Link | PDF]
Environmental and Resource Economics, 2021, pp. 95-130
Winner of the 2021 Euregio Young Researcher Award
Selected media coverage: i news.
25. Abrupt decline in tropospheric nitrogen dioxide over China after the outbreak of COVID-19 (with F. Liu et al.) [Link | PDF]
Science Advances, 2020, vol. 6
Selected media coverage: Science Advances Editorial, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, Washington Post, Fox News, SkyNews.
24. The critical role of second-order normative beliefs in predicting energy conservation (with J. M. Jachimowicz, J. O’Brien, E. Sherman and A. Galinsky) [Link | PDF]
Nature Human Behaviour, 2018, vol. 2, pp. 757-764
Ranked #17 worldwide in the Financial Times’ Business School Research with Social Impact
Selected media coverage: Ars Electronica, Pacific Standard, Phys.Org, ScienceDaily.
23. Think global, act local: Preserving the global commons (with A. Hendriks, D. G. Rand and M. A. Nowak) [Link | PDF]
Scientific Reports, 2016, vol. 6, pp. 1-7
22. Cooperating with the future (with D. G. Rand, A. Peysakhovich, M. A. Nowak) [Link | PDF | Data & Code]
Nature, 2014, vol. 511, pp. 220-223
Selected for Nature News & Views commentary by Louis Putterman: “Behavioural economics: A caring majority secures the future.” [Online]
Selected for a Nature Video production: “Handing on a sustainable future” (available on YouTube).
Selected media coverage: Boston Globe, Huffington Post, Nature News, Harvard Gazette, Phys.Org, Think Progress, RedOrbit, ScienceDaily.
Evolution of cooperation and altruism
21. (Mis)perceiving cooperativeness (with C. Rossetti and C. Hilbe) [Link | PDF]
Current Opinion in Psychology, 2021, vol. 43, pp. 151-155
20. Evolution of cooperation in multichannel games (with K. Donahue, M. A. Nowak and C. Hilbe) [Link | PDF]
Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11
19. Social dilemmas among unequals (with C. Hilbe, K. Chatterjee and M. A. Nowak) [Link | PDF | Data & Code]
Nature, 2019, vol. 572, pp. 524-527
Selected media coverage: Bloomberg, Yahoo News, AOL, Nature News, Der Standard, APA, Phys.Org and 80+ more.
18. High stakes: A little more cheating, a lot less charity (with Z. Rahwan, E. Kochanowska and B. Fasolo) [Link | PDF]
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2018, vol. 152, pp. 276-295
Selected media coverage: Economic Times, ScienceDaily.
17. Punishment does not promote cooperation under exploration dynamics if anti-social punishment is possible (with M. A. Nowak and D. G. Rand) [Link | PDF]
Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2014, vol. 360, pp. 163-171
16. Heterogeneity in background fitness acts as a suppressor of selection (with A. Traulsen and M. A. Nowak) [Link | PDF]
Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2014, vol. 343, pp. 178–185
Inequality and poverty reduction
15. Measuring inequality beyond the Gini coefficient may clarify conflicting findings (with K. Blesch and J. M. Jachimowicz) [Link | PDF]
Nature Human Behaviour, 2022, vol. 6, pp. 1525-1536
Selected media coverage: HBS Working Knowledge, ScienMag.
14. Inequality in researchers’ minds (with J. M. Jachimowicz, S. Davidai, D. Goya-Tocchetto, B. Szaszi, M. V. Day, S. J. Tepper, L. T. Phillips, M. U. Mirza and N. Ordabayeva) [Link | PDF]
Journal of Economic Surveys, 2022
13. Ideology selectively shapes attention to inequality (with H. Waldfogel, J. Sheehy-Skeffington, A. K. Ho and N. S. Kteily) [Link | PDF]
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021, vol. 118
Selected media coverage: Ars Technica, Phys.Org.
12. The role of inequity aversion in microloan defaults (with M. R. Jordan, W. Dickens and D. G. Rand) [Link]
Behavioural Public Policy, 2019
11. Invisible inequality leads to punishing the poor and rewarding the rich (with G. Kraft-Todd, D. G. Rand, M. A. Nowak and M. I. Norton) [Link | PDF]
Behavioural Public Policy, 2019, vol. 4, pp. 1-21
Selected media coverage: EurekAlert, Phys.Org.
10. (Mis)perceptions of inequality (with M. I. Norton) [Link | PDF]
Current Opinion in Psychology, 2017, vol. 18, pp. 21-25
EDI and sustainability leadership
9. Regulation and the trickle-down effect of women in leadership roles (with A. Page, R. Sealy, and A. Parker) [Link | PDF]
The Leadership Quarterly, 2023
8. Reducing discrimination against job seekers with and without employment gaps (with A. Kristal, L. Nicks, and J. Gloor) [Link | PDF]
Nature Human Behaviour, 2022, vol. 7, pp. 211-218
Awarded ‘Highly Commended’ for the 2023 Professor Ian Beardwell Prize by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
Designated a “Best Paper” in the Gender and Diversity in Organizations Division at the 2020 Academy of Management Conference
Selected for inclusion in the Harvard Kennedy School’s Gender Action Portal for practitioners and policy-makers.
Selected media coverage: Forbes, CNBC.
7. Thin slices of workgroups (with P. Satterstrom, J. T. Polzer, L. B. Kwan, W. Wiruchnipawan and M. Burke) [Link | PDF]
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2019, vol. 151, pp. 104-117
Selected media coverage: EurekAlert, ScienceDaily, Phys.Org.
Methodological papers and replications
6. Deception about study purpose does not affect participant behavior (with Z. Rahwan and B. Fasolo) [Link | PDF]
Scientific Reports, 2022
5. Determining causal relationships in leadership research using big data Analytics: The powerful synergy of experiments and data science (with A. Lee, I. Inceoglu and M. Greene) [Link | PDF]
The Leadership Quarterly, 2020
4. Budging beliefs, nudging behaviour (with F. Gino and M. I. Norton) [Link | PDF]
Mind & Society, 2018, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 15-26
3. Failure to CAPTCHA attention: Null results from an honesty priming experiment in Guatemala (with S. Kettle, M. Hernandez, M. Sanders and S. Ruda) [Link | PDF]
Behavioral Sciences, 2018, vol. 7, no. 28, pp 1-21
2. Registered replication report for Rand, Green, & Nowak (2012) (with S. Boucwmeester et al.) [Link | PDF]
Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2017, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 527-542
1. Innovation with field experiments: Studying organizational behaviors in actual organizations (with E. Linos and T. Rogers) [Link | PDF]
Research in Organizational Behavior, 2017, vol. 37, pp. 185-198
Ongoing Research
A randomized controlled trial on the provision of financial and social capital to low-income households in the United States (with Ania Jaroszewicz, Jon Jachimowicz, Nava Ashraf, Emily Bianchi, Stephan Meier and Johannes Haushofer)
Reducing gender bias with behavioural design (several projects with Cansin Arslan, Iris Bohnet and Siri Chilazi)
Inequality at work and in society (several projects with Jon Jachimowicz)
Cooperating with the past to cooperate with the future (with Zach Freitas-Groff, Ben Grodeck and Johannes Lohse)
Banking on the future (with Ben Grodeck and Christian Hilbe)
Who caused—and who should fix—climate change? (with Joel Lamb and Helena Fornwagner)
Challenges to cooperation (several projects with Christian Hilbe)