About me
I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Economics at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. My research is in behavioral economics and the economics of education, with a focus on how and when group identity affects economic decisions. I study these questions through the use of experimental methods.
Email: daniel.carvajal@aalto.fi
You can find my CV here
Working papers
Will Artificial Intelligence get in the way of achieving gender equality?
(with Catalina Franco and Siri Isaksson)
The promise of generative AI to increase human productivity relies on developing skills to become proficient at it. Women and men may use AI tools differently, which could result in productivity and payoff gaps in a labor market increasingly demanding knowledge in AI. Thus, it is important to understand any gender differences in AI-usage among current students. We conduct a survey at the Norwegian School of Economics collecting use and attitudes towards ChatGPT, a measure of AI proficiency, and responses to policies allowing or forbidding ChatGPT use. Three key findings emerge: first, female students report a significantly lower use of ChatGPT compared to their male counterparts. Second, male students are more skilled at writing successful prompts, even after accounting for higher ChatGPT usage. Third, imposing ChatGPT bans widens the gender gap in intended use substantially, while allowing ChatGPT closes the gender gap. We provide insights into potential factors influencing the AI adoption gender gap and highlight the role of appropriate encouragement and policies in allowing female students to benefit from AI usage, thereby mitigating potential impacts on later labor market outcomes.
Exposure to diversity, social proximity and ingroup bias (Draft coming soon)
As society becomes increasingly diverse, a key question arises: does a change in our social context - defined by the individuals we are exposed to - influence our interactions with each other? This paper studies this question using an experiment in a large-scale U.S. sample. Participants make an incentivized allocation towards either a fellow U.S. national or a foreigner, when being exogenously exposed to social contexts with varying levels of diversity in nationalities. I find that facing a diverse context amplifies ingroup bias, the tendency to favor one's own group, driven by both increased allocations towards U.S. nationals and decreased allocations to foreigners relative to allocations in a homogeneous context. Evidence suggests that changes in perceptions of social proximity are a mechanism behind the effects of context on allocations. The findings are consistent with ethnic diversity triggering welfare chauvinism in individuals.
Work in progress
The role of a majority-minority status and ingroup affinity in shaping social preferences