Tushi Baul Working Papers - Department of Economics - Iowa State ...

CONTACT
INFORMATION
RESEARCH
FIELDS
PhD Candidate
Department Of Economics
Iowa State University
Ames, IA 50010, USA
Tushi Baul
Mobile: (515)-231-7917
E-mail: baultushi@gmail.com
Primary: Experimental Economics, Behavioral Economics.
Secondary: Econometrics, International Trade, Agricultural Economics.
EDUCATION Iowa State University, Ames, IA Expected May 2013
PhD in Economics
RESEARCH
EXPERIENCE
Dissertation: “Self-selection and peer-effects in experimental labor market”
Committee Members: Tanya Rosenblat, Markus Mobius, Rajesh Singh, Peter
Orazem, Wallace Huffman.
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India Jul 2003
ITD, School of International Studies
Masters in Economics
Presidency College, Kolkata, India Jul 2001
Bachelors of Science (Honors) in Economics
Working Papers
• “Does unethical behavior affect choice of profession: public vs private?”, Banerjee,
Ritwik, Baul, Tushi and Rosenblat, Tanya.
Job Market Paper
Abstract
We contribute to a growing literature in experimental labor economics that
studies the interaction between workplace culture and worker selection(Dohmen
and Falk(2011), Niederle and Vesterlund(2007)). Using a laboratory experiment
with university students in India who are either private sector job aspirants or
public sector aspirants (wanting to join Indian bureaucracy), we study the effects
of labor market sorting in the choice between public vs private sector
careers based on one’s propensity to engage in unethical behavior. We divide
the subjects into two groups: workers and supervisors. The workers perform in
a real effort task and the supervisors evaluate the performance of workers and
send them their earnings in terms of tokens, which is a medium of exchange in
laboratory. The supervisors have to claim the required number of tokens needed
to pay the workers. The measure of cheating that we use in our experiment is
the difference between the number of tokens claimed by the supervisors and the
number of tokens sent to the workers. We then link this cheating behavior to
their future career choice. We find that there is a significant difference in cheating
behavior between public and private sector aspirants. The proportion of
public sector aspirants who engage in unethical behavior is not statistically significantly
different than that of private sector aspirants. However, the amount
of cheating of public sector aspirants is significantly more than private sector
aspirants. Public sector aspirants cheat 51.5% relatively more than those planning
to pursue careers in the private sector.

TEACHING
EXPERIENCE
• “Social networks and non-cognitive skills”, Baul, Tushi, Mobius, Markus and
Rosenblat, Tanya.
This paper was one of the five finalists in The University Council of Industrial
Relations and Human Resource Programs Student Paper Competition,2011.
Abstract
Recent research in psychology and economics has documented the importance
of non-cognitive skills for labor market outcomes. In this paper, we focus on a
particular non-cognitive skill — self-confidence about one’s ability. We use economic
experiments to measure participants’ beliefs about their expected relative
performance in a real-effort task using an incentive-compatible mechanism for
belief elicitation. We combine self-confidence measures with a unique dataset
on the social network of the participants to investigate whether there are peer
effects in confidence. Indeed, we find that more confident participants tend
to have more confident friends. Peer effects might be an important transmission
mechanism for acquisition of self-confidence. We therefore explore whether
our finding is due to selection (confident participants choose to have confident
friends) or social interaction (one’s confidence is influenced by friends’ confidence).
Papers in progress
• “Social norms regarding bribe giving vs bribe taking: private vs. public sector
in India”, Banerjee, Ritwik, Baul, Tushi and Rosenblat, Tanya.
• “Self-selection and creation of corporate cultures: mergers and acquisitions”,
Baul, Tushi, Rosenblat, Tanya and Strasburg, Chris.
• “Social networks and altruism”, Baul, Tushi, Bhalla, Manaswini and Rosenblat,
Tanya.
• “Hind-sight bias: does monitoring increase effort?”, Baul, Tushi and Rosenblat,
Tanya.
Other Research Experience
• Research Assistant under Dr. Soko Starobin in Educational Leadership and
Policy Studies Department, Fall 2012.
• Research Assistant under Dr. Tanya Rosenblat in the project “Social networks
and obesity”, Spring 2011.
• Intern at World Trade Organization, Geneva on World Trade Report 2010,
“Trade in natural resources”, Fall 2009.
• Research Assistant at Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi in an environment
economics related project “The importance of being informed: experimental
evidence on demand for environmental quality: drinking water in urban India”,
Mar 2004.
Instructor
Principles of Microeconomics(ECON 101), Summer 2012.
Teaching Assistant
• Graduate Microeconomics (ECON 501), Fall 2011, led weekly two-hour recitations
• Principles of Microeconomics (ECON 101), Fall 2007 Spring 2011, led weekly
one-hour recitations
• Introduction to Agricultural Markets (ECON 235), Spring 2012

INDUSTRY
EXPERIENCE
CONFERENCES,
WORKSHOPS
AND HONORS
PROFESSIONAL
AFFILIATION
LANGUAGE
SKILLS
COMPUTER
SKILLS
• Economics of China and India (Indian Economics part, ECON 387x), Fall 2010,
2011
• Applied Economic Optimization (ECON 207), Spring 2012, led weekly two-hour
recitations
Business Analyst in the Analytics team at GE Capital International Services,
New Delhi, May, 2004 - Jun, 2006.
Responsibility: Building various statistical models for managing risk, acquiring
customers for the business primarily using logistic regression, regression analysis,
cluster analysis using SAS.
• Presenting the paper “Does unethical behavior affect choice of profession: public
vs private?” at Economic Science Association in Nov, 2012.
• Presented the paper “Social networks and non-cognitive skills” at Labor and
Employment Relations Association meeting in Jan, 2012.
• Selected to present the paper “Social networks and non-cognitive skills” at
University of Northern Iowa in Nov, 2011.
• Selected to attend “Networks and development” conference in Louisiana State
University in March, 2012.
• Selected to participate in the 16th The International Foundation for Research
in Experimental Economics graduate student workshop at Chapman University
in Jan, 2011.
• Selected and funded to participate in the Summer School at University of
Trento, Italy on “Evolution of social preferences” in June, 2011.
• Recipient of the Ford Foundation Scholarship at Jawaharlal Nehru University
for being one of the top five students all throughout my Masters Program, 2003.
American Economic Association (AEA)
Economic Science Association (ESA)
Research Affiliate at Center for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal
Nehru University
English (fluent), Bengali (native), Hindi (national language)
STATA, R, SAS, LATEX
NATIONALITY Indian (F1-VISA)

REFERENCES Tanya Rosenblat Rajesh Singh
Major Professor Committee Member
Associate Professor Associate Professor
Department of Economics, Department of Economics,
Iowa State University Iowa State University
515-294-5028, 515-294-5213,
tanyar@iastate.edu rsingh@iastate.edu
Markus Mobius Wallace Huffman
Committee Member Committee Member
Associate Professor Distinguished Professor
Department of Economics, Department of Economics,
Iowa State University Iowa State University
markusmobius@gmail.com 515-294-6359,
whuffman@iastate.edu
Soko Starobin
Assistant Professor
Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (ELPS)
Iowa State University
515-294-9121
starobin@iastate.edu