Margaret Samahita

Margaret Samahita

Assistant Professor

School of Economics

University College Dublin

About

I am Assistant Professor at the School of Economics, University College Dublin and Research Fellow at the Geary Institute for Public Policy. I hold a PhD in Economics from Lund University.

My research is in behavioural economics, where I use theoretical, empirical and (primarily) experimental methods to study individual decision-making. My current research focuses on the effects of social influence on online behaviour and political preferences. More recently, I am also interested in studying gender differences in economics and the causes and consequences of gender norms.

Research Interests: Behavioral Economics, Experimental Economics, Gender Economics, Political Economy

Contact: m.samahita@gmail.com

CV: [pdf]

Research

Working Papers

Strategic confidence? The gender confidence gap and anticipated discrimination in economics peer-review (with Martina Zanella) Reject and Resubmit at Journal of Human Resources

Conformity and silence: Experimental evidence on social pressure and free speech (with Juan S. Morales) Revise and Resubmit at Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
Previous version: Can social pressure stifle free speech? [twitter]

"Luxury beliefs”: Signaling through ideology? Revise and Resubmit at Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics

The benefit of collective intelligence in community-based content moderation is limited by overt political signalling (with Gabriela Juncosa, Saeedeh Mohammadi and Taha Yasseri)

 

Selected Work in Progress

Rebalancing work: Gender perception, job design, and occupational dynamics (with Petru Calenici and Demid Getik)

Administrative burdens, incentives, and take-up of grants: Evidence from a real-effort task experiment (with Glenn McNamara and Leonhard K. Lades)

Funhouse reflections: Social media perceptions and charitable donation (with Pierluigi Conzo, Andrea Gallice and Juan S. Morales)

Working and veiling: Muslim religious behaviour and labour force participation in Canada (with Kevin Devereux and Blair Long)

Publications

Journal Articles

Holm, H. J., Samahita, M., Wengström, E. & van Veldhuizen, R. (2025). Anchoring and subjective belief distributions. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 240:107304.

Lades, L. K., Samahita, M., Martin, L., Sunstein, C. R., & Baekgaard, M. (2025). Vulnerability to and acceptability of different types of sludge. Behavioural Public Policy, 1-30. [policy brief]

Lago, M. E., Samahita, M., & Doyle, O. (2025). Unraveling gender norms: Social and personal norms in the preferential promotion of women. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 115:102336.

Getik, D., Islam, M., & Samahita, M. (2024). The inelastic demand for affirmative action. European Economic Review, 170:104862. [twitter]

Samahita, M., & Devereux, K. (2024). Are economics conferences gender-neutral? Evidence from Ireland. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 86(1):101-118. [podcast] [twitter]

Devereux, K., & Samahita, M. (2023). Gender, productivity, and promotion in the Irish economics profession. Economics Bulletin, 43(3):1225-1234. [podcast]

Samahita, M., & Lades, L. K. (2023). Compliance spending aversion: An unintended consequence of charity regulation. Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, 6(1):1-30. [twitter]

Conzo, P.Taylor, L. K.Morales, J. S. ⓡ Samahita, M. ⓡ Gallice, A. (2023). Can ♥s change minds? Social media endorsements and policy preferences. Social Media + Society, 9(2). Erratum: Figure 5 right panel should be this. [the conversation] [twitter]

Samahita, M., & Holm, H. J. (2023). No mood effects in the field: The case of car inspections. Journal of Economic Psychology, 96:102612. [twitter]

Ek, C., & Samahita, M. (2023). Too much commitment? An online experiment with tempting YouTube content. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 208:21-38. [online appendices] [twitter]

Mundaca, L., & Samahita, M. (2020). What drives home solar PV uptake? Subsidies, peer effects and visibility in Sweden. Energy Research & Social Science, 60:101319.

Samahita, M. (2020). Pay-what-you-want in competition. The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, 20(1):20180063. [pdf]

Holm, H. J., & Samahita, M. (2018). Curating social image: Experimental evidence on the value of actions and selfies. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 148:83-104. [radio]

Samahita, M. (2017). Venting and gossiping in conflicts: Verbal expression in ultimatum games. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 67:111-121.

Kahsay, G. A., & Samahita, M. (2015). Pay-what-you-want pricing schemes: A self-image perspective. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, 7:17-28.

Samahita, M. (2013). Effect of effort on self-image: Monotonically increasing self-image functions. Economics Bulletin, 33(1):152-157.

 

Large-scale Research Collaborations

Aczel, B., Szaszi, B., Kósa, L., Torma, Z., Kumpel, H., Clelland, H. T., Hoffmann, S., Kovács, M., Ahnström, L., Holzmeister, F., Nilsonne, G., & the Multi100 Collaboration. (2025). Investigating the analytical robustness of the social and behavioural sciences. Nature (accepted).

Huntington-Klein, N., Pörtner, C. C., McCarthy, I., & the Many-Economists Research Collective. (2025). The sources of researcher variation in economics. NBER Working Paper No. 33729.

Fišar, M., Greiner, B., Huber, C., Katok, E., Ozkes, A., & the Management Science Reproducibility Collaboration. (2024). Reproducibility in Management Science. Management Science, 70(3):1343–1356.

Schaerer, M., Du Plessis, C., Nguyen, M. H. B., Van Aert, R. C., Tiokhin, L., Lakens, D., Clemente, E. G., Pfeiffer, T., Dreber, A., Johannesson, M., Clark, C. J., Uhlmann, E. L., & the Gender Audits Forecasting Collaboration. (2023). On the trajectory of discrimination: A meta-analysis and forecasting survey capturing 44 years of field experiments on gender and hiring decisions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 179:104280.

Tierney, W., Hardy III, J. H., Ebersole, C. R., Leavitt, K., Viganola, D., Clemente, E. G., Gordon, M., Dreber, A., Johannesson, M., Pfeiffer, T., the Hiring Decisions Forecasting Collaboration, & Uhlmann, E. L. (2020). Creative destruction in science. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 161:291–309.

 

Book Chapter

Mundaca, L., Samahita, M., Sonnenschein, J. & Seidl, R. (2020). Behavioural economics for energy and climate change policies and the transition to a sustainable energy use: A Scandinavian perspective. In M. Lopes, C. Henggeler Antunes & K. B. Janda (Eds.), Energy and Behavior: Towards a Low Carbon Future, pp. 45–87. London: Academic Press.

 

Teaching

Current Teaching

Advanced Microeconomics - MSc Economics.

Decision Theory - MSc Economics.

Economics of Gender - BSc Economics.