José-Alberto Guerra 

​Train to opportunity: The effect of infrastructure on intergenerational mobility, March 2025 (R&R Economic Journal), with Costas-Fernandez Julián and Mohnen Myra [Online Appendix]

Can transport infrastructure promote long-term labour opportunities and break the occupation tie between parents and their children? We estimate the causal effect of access to the railway network on occupational attainment and intergenerational mobility in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England and Wales. We determine how proximity to the nearest in-service station affected occupational attainment and leverage the as-good-as-random opening of built and planned train stations to address endogeneity in proximity. Sons residing 5 km closer to a station were more likely to transition out of farming and into industrial and commercial occupations, with many moving into the top quartile of occupational ranking. Sons with better railway access were 2% more likely to pursue a different occupation than their fathers and 6% more likely to experience upward mobility, driven primarily by improved local labour opportunities.

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Guns, pets, and strikes: An experiment on political action and social interactions, May 2025 (submitted), with Ginzburg Boris, [Online Appendix]

We study the role of political collective action in shaping subsequent social interactions. In an experiment, subjects choose whether to participate in real-world collective action. Following participation choices, we observe increased prosociality between participants, but not within other pairs. Based on this, we develop a model of participation, which predicts that higher valuation of the cause makes an individual expect higher participation by others, and higher expectation increases payoffs and makes an individual more likely to participate. We test these predictions using data from the experiment, finding support for them. This helps explain the role of coordination in collective action.​​

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Critical mass in collective action, November 2024 (submitted),  with Ginzburg Boris and Lekfuangfu Warn 

Using a laboratory experiment, we study the incentives of individuals to contribute to a public good that is provided if and only if the fraction of contributors reaches a certain threshold. We jointly vary the size of the group, the cost of contributing, the required threshold, and the framing of contributions (giving to the common pool, or not taking from the common pool). We find that a higher threshold makes individuals more likely to contribute. The effect is strong enough that in a small group, raising the required threshold increases the probability that the public good is provided. In larger groups, however, the effect disappears. At the same time, we do not find a consistent effect of framing on the probability of contributing or on the likelihood of success.

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Anti-social norms, July 2024 (submitted), with Fergusson Leopoldo and Robinson James, [Online Appendix]

Since formal rules can only partially reduce opportunistic behavior, third-party sanctioning to promote fairness is critical to achieving desirable social outcomes. Social norms may underpin such behavior, but they can also undermine it. We study one such norm —the “don’t be a toad” norm, as it is referred to in Colombia— that tells people to mind their own business and not snitch on others. In a set of fairness games where a third party can punish unfair behavior, but players can invoke the “don’t be a toad” norm, we find that the mere possibility of invoking this norm completely reverses the benefits of third-party sanctioning to achieve fair social outcomes. We establish this is an anti-social norm in a well-defined sense: most players consider it inappropriate, yet they expect the majority will invoke it. To understand this phenomenon we develop an evolutionary model of endogenous social norm transmission and demonstrate that a payoff advantage from adherence to the norm in social dilemmas, combined with sufficient heterogeneity in the disutility of those who view the norm as inappropriate, can generate the apparent paradox of an anti-social norm in the steady-state equilibrium. We provide further evidence that historical exposure to political violence, which increased the ostracization of snitches, raised sensitivity to this norm.​​

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Selected Work in progress

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What drives collective action? Evidence from a field experiment, with Ginzburg Boris

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Team-up to move-up: team interactions and social mobility , with Caicedo, Santiago and Zárate, Román

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Group-based stereotypes origins and political implications for social inclusion, with Ginzburg Boris and Lekfuangfu Warn

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Social mobility and women's emancipation in the nineteenth century, with Costas-Fernandez Julián, Mohnen Myra, and Torres-Higuera Paula