Revealing Zero-sum Thinking in the United Kingdom
joint with Lucinda Platt (LSE) and Pratyush Tiwari (UCL and IFS)
October 2026
Abstract Preferences over economic policies are conditioned by the extent to which individuals understand the world in zero-sum terms. Zero-sum thinking (ZST) is the belief that gains for one individual or group necessarily imply corresponding losses for others. We study the prevalence and triggers for ZST among the majority White British population in the UK, using a survey experiment administered to 3200 individuals, fielded in the run up to the high-stakes UK General Election in July 2024. Our experiment presents respondents with qualitative narratives either about the economic success or disadvantage of specific minority groups. We measure how each narrative shifts perceptions of the economic circumstances of minorities, and of the White British ingroup. By examining treatment effects of the narratives on perceptions of the ingroup, our design provides a novel revealed measure of ZST. Estimating conditional average treatment effects, we document that just over 20% of respondents are revealed as ZSTs from either narrative. However, each narrative reveals a distinct type of zero-sum thinker. Those identified through the narrative of minority success hold similar policy preferences to non-ZSTs. In contrast, those identified through the narrative of minority disadvantage are significantly less supportive of pro-poor policies in general, and policies to reduce ethnic inequalities in particular. We show this is not because ZSTs and non-ZSTs differ in how they perceive the economic outcomes of minorities, opportunities available to minorities, or root causes of minority disadvantage. Our results illustrate how ZST can be triggered by light-touch narratives typical of transient information exposure in daily life, but consequences for redistributive preferences depend on the nature of narratives individuals are exposed to.
Witnessing Crime
joint with Elisa Facchetti (Tor Vergata) and Joost Sijthoff (UCL and IFS).
September 2026
Abstract Many individuals experience crime as victims. However, many more individuals witness crime. We study how both experiences, being a witness to crime and being a victim of crime, impact crime-related perceptions, spanning confidence in institutions of the justice system, perceptions of neighborhoods, and personal safety. Combining waves of the Crime Survey for England and Wales from 2001-18 we document: (i) witnessing crime is twice as prevalent as victimization; (ii) while victimization rates have fallen by 32% over our study period, rates of witnessing crime have remained unchanged over time; (iii) violent crime constitutes a greater share of all crime over time; (iv) rates of witnessing violent crime have risen by 28%, which has 10 times as many witnesses per incident than other crimes. We then show that crime-related perceptions negatively associate with both experiences, with witnessing crime having stronger negative associations with confidence in institutions and views of local neighborhoods, while victimization is more strongly associated with feelings of personal safety. At a final stage, we consider implications for measuring the social cost of crime if witnessing experiences are also accounted for. We show: (i) the aggregate social costs of crime based only on victims have fallen by 17% over our study period; (ii) the aggregate social costs borne by witnesses have risen by 36%; (iii) once victim and witness costs aggregated, the total social costs of crime have remained relatively unchanged over time. By incorporating witnessing experiences into measuring the costs of crime, our analysis shed lights on a phenomenon observed in many countries: the general perception that crime is rising, a view unanchored from persistent declines in the actual incidence of crime.
Legacies of Conflict: Self-efficacy and the Formation of Conditional Trust
joint with Niklas Buehren (World Bank), Markus Goldstein (CGDEV)
and Andrea Smurra (City St George's and IFS).
September 2026
Abstract Exposure to armed conflict in early life is a traumatic experience, and so can shape the formation of economic preferences. We combine theory, measurement and evidence to study the link between exposure to conflict and the long-term formation of trust preferences. We do so in a sample of 3900 women born during the Sierra Leonean civil war and surveyed 14 years later. We first develop a framework to establish how exposure to conflict and trust can be linked. This makes precise what individuals have in mind when expressing conditional trust in others, and establishes the role of self-efficacy in linking conflict and trust. Our empirical analysis then shows that exposure to conflict is associated with: (i) a rise in conditional trust and a fall in outright trust of others; (ii) increased self-efficacy. In line with the framework, we then establish that self-efficacy itself is associated with an increased likelihood of conditional trust in others. To microfound how exposure to conflict translates into self-efficacy, we construct a granular typology of experiences of conflict, combining information on age of exposure to conflict and recall of victimization. We use this to show how direct exposure, memories and trauma, and narratives of conflict from others each distinctively shape self-efficacy. Finally, we show how our framework and evidence help reconcile heterogeneous findings across conflict scenarios, and suggest avenues for future work on the more general role of psychological legacies from traumatic shocks early in life on the long-term formation of economic preferences.