Maria Recalde

Dr Maria Recalde uses tools from experimental and behavioural economics to understand how others influence our choices and how this in turn affects the economy. Her work spans an array of decision environments such as voluntary public good provision, risk taking, task allocations, and decision making within households.

With the support of a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, Dr Recalde is currently investigating how gender differences in people's willingness to perform tasks that won't necessarily help them get promoted have consequences for them in the labour market. By better understanding who volunteers for this kind of work and why, her work will help organisations close gender gaps in the labour market.

In other research Dr. Recalde has examined whether leaders are the most influential agents in social groups and why. She has also studied methodological questions, such as how error and response time can affect data and conclusions drawn from experiments as well as how experiments can be used to measure preference alignment and bargaining power in the household. Dr Recalde has experience conducting laboratory and field experiments in Australia, the United States, Bolivia, Malawi, and Ghana.

Dr Recalde teaches public economics and experimental economics at the University of Melbourne. As well as publishing her research in journals such as the Journal of Public Economics and the American Economic Review, Dr Recalde’s work has featured in the Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic and Forbes.