Working Papers

[4]* Marine Fishing Explains Large-scale Behavioral and Psychological Differences in Japan and Worldwide (with Thomas Talhelm)

Within the fields of economics and psychology, few subsistence studies have looked at the effect of a history of fishing on modern cultural differences. Using our own survey data collected from a natural test case in Japan and on a global scale, this project shows that pre-modern marine fishing practices explain large-scale differences in human behavior and psychology.

*All replication codes and data were deposited in the Open Science Framework on November 18, 2024, and are available upon request. For a quick overview of the paper, please check out this one-page poster.

[3] Exclusion and the Origin of Intergroup Bias (with Yan Chen - Please email us for a preliminary draft!)    

It has been shown that intergroup preferences can facilitate the provision of public goods. This project reverses the causal arrow and proposes that the provision of excludable public goods plays a role in shaping intergroup bias. We test this idea using two types of data: (i) original data collected from a natural experiment in China; and (ii) publicly available data across 1,265 historical ethnic groups, 150 contemporary nations, and 10,000 second-generation immigrants in Europe.

[2] Paddy and Prejudice: Evidence from China and 12 other Asian Societies 

An Huang, Paulo Santos, and Russell Smyth. 2023. Submitted

In China, people from rice-farming areas are less likely to oppose having diverse groups as neighbors in the World Values Survey. This relationship is mediated by greater exposure to grain markets, itself derived from paddy’s higher land productivity, likely reflecting the opportunities for interpersonal contact created by markets.

[1] Behavioral Adaptation to Improved Environmental Quality: Evidence from a Sanitation Intervention 

Lisa Cameron, An Huang, Paulo Santos, and Milan Thomas. 2023. Asian Development Bank Blog. Under Review

Following the conclusion of a field experiment aimed at improving sanitation coverage, a significant portion of households stopped boiling water before drinking. This is because water boiling in developing countries is associated with hassle and inconvenience. When people perceive the community water as cleaner with better village sanitation, their perceived necessity of boiling drinking water is reduced.