My Highlights
The absolute highlight of my PhD were definitely the other PhD students - I made some great friends and generally felt like we were in this together from start to end. I also greatly appreciated the trust and support I received from my supervisors. I had the freedom to explore and to grow under their guidance, and the BGSE, Uni Bonn, CRC TR 224 and ECONtribute generously supported me in my projects. Other highlights of my PhD journey include a research visit at the London School of Economics, various trips to international conferences, cooperating with the student canteen in Bonn on two of my research projects, and being involved in teaching at the Economics faculty.
My Research
In my research, I examine the effectiveness of interventions aimed at promoting sustainable behaviors. I am particularly interested in the behavioral channels driving effects. For example, one of my projects shows that carbon labels can help people make more carbon-friendly choices. For this project, I cooperated with the student canteen in Bonn and installed carbon labels in one of the canteens for seven weeks. Student canteen guests consumed more low-emission meals due to the labels and a large majority was in favor of the labels being installed more permanently. In the paper, I also quantify the effectiveness of carbon labels relative to a carbon tax and show that the labels mainly seem to influence consumers by focusing their attention on carbon emissions. In contrast, the labels' ability to correct consumers' misperceptions about the carbon footprint of different options seems to play a smaller role in changing consumption decisions.
Link to project:
My Future
In June, I started a position as postdoctoral researcher at Bocconi University in Milan. Next year, I will join the University of Glasgow as an Assistant Professor in Economics.