Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Southampton
I am an applied microeconomist. My research explores the motives behind prosocial behaviour in contexts such as charitable giving, climate change, and political economy. I enjoy working with unstructured, non-traditional data.
I did my PhD at Bristol and worked briefly at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
Do people care more about the environment after climate disasters? I find that those directly affected by flooding do, but most do not change their actions when their neighbours are hit—except for those with strong moral universalist values.
When a big charity is hit by scandal, do people give elsewhere or stop donating altogether? Donors do not give up on giving; instead, they shift support to other similar charities, identified by the words charities use in their missions.
Does a universal crisis localise giving? After Covid, donors shifted to local charities, especially in harder-hit, ethnically homogeneous communities, while responding less to overseas appeals, and areas with greater parochialism rebounded faster in wellbeing.