LEAP Student Grants 2021

The "LEAP Student Grant" evaluation committee has reviewed all the proposals received for the 2021 edition of our funding competition, designed to support independent research from PhD students in the areas of Development economics, Poverty reduction and changes of harmful social norms. The committee, composed this year by professors Eliana La Ferrara, Pamela Giustinelli, Lucia Corno and by Selene Ghisolfi chose to award the grant to three projects this year (grants are conditional on receiving the ethical approval for the study from the winners' own institution).

Three projects have been selected as the ones having the highest potential for poverty reduction and employing the most novel research methods. We are very glad to share them with all the LEAP community:

“In worn shoes – life from a homeless’ perspective”
by Nicolas Aureli, University of Milan-Bicocca

Homeless people are exposed daily to social exclusion, leading to resignation and alienation. People tend to underestimate the severity of pain derived from social exclusion unless they are actively experiencing this condition, thus reducing the possibility of empathizing with marginalized groups. In this project participants will experience first-hand the exclusion that homeless people live daily through Virtual Reality, a recently developed technology which allows immersion in other people’s lives. Studies show that this technology can increase helping behaviors and decrease prejudice against outgroup members. We will test if the simulation can influence the psychological and emotional experience of participants and their estimate of social pain associated with being homeless, as well as the possible change in attitude towards homeless people.

"Overcoming Intimate Partner Violence: The Impact of Networks Among Immigrant Women in Shelters"
by Maddalena Grignani, University of Chicago and Jack Melbourne, Bocconi University

Research has shown that Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is a persistent and deep-seated social norm, grounded in factors such as the economic role of women, and living and marriage arrangements. Our proposal aims to understand how these social norms are influenced when exposed to contrasting perspectives, and whether changes in attitudes can influence downstream socio-economic integration outcomes. In Denmark, a country that consistently ranks highly in terms of gender equality, a majority of refugees come from countries with a high tolerance for domestic violence and more than 50% of rooms at womens' shelters are occupied by immigrant women. By exploiting the quasi-experimental variation in the ethnic composition of women in these shelters, we can understand the influence of exposure to alternative perspectives. We test if an increase in interaction between foreign and Danish women affects both attitudes and tolerance of IPV and facilitates integration into Danish society, reducing revictimization and leading to improvements in labor market participation and the mental and physical well-being of both the immigrant women and their children.

"Under Pressure: the impact of women’s mental load on attention and productivity"
by Sveva Vitellozzi, University of Trento and University of Florence

The labor productivity gap between men and women is a widespread phenomenon that persists along the whole wage distribution. In developing countries, this gap is particularly pronounced both in urban and rural settings. Little is known about the psychological dimension that could contribute to widening this gap: women risk being more disadvantaged than men because of mental load, the management underlying household activities. Following the recent literature on scarcity, according to which poverty negatively impacts cognitive functions and economic outcomes, the aim of this study is to analyze the gender-differentiated impact of mental load on labor productivity controlling for attentional constraints as a leading mechanism. To test for this hypothesis, I propose a lab-in-the-field experiment where participants will be exposed to a scenario inducing thoughts about mental load and then they will be asked to perform an effort task. By directly comparing the performance in the task between men and women, I will estimate the impact of mental load on the gender productivity gap.

Many congratulations to all winners, and best of luck with their research projects! We look forward to the presentation of their findings!