Nicholas Umashev

I am a visiting postdoctoral scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law within the Behavioral Economics of Crime and Conflict research group and recently completed a PhD in economics at the University of Queensland, supervised by Daniel Zizzo, Carlos Oyarzun, and Alexandros Karakostas.

I develop economic models that I test using online, lab, and field experiments to help improve our understanding of social norms, antisocial behaviour, signalling, deception, and other topics in applied micro and behavioural economics. I have also worked with think tanks and consulting firms on topics such as the effectiveness of workforce matching programs, migration trends, housing affordability, and education performance.

Some of the research questions and projects I am currently working on include:

In what contexts can antisocial signalling lead to recruitment in principal-agent settings and can signalling opportunities turn the prosocial into antisocial?
Do people engage in moral balancing, such that past antisocial behaviour increases future prosocial behaviour (and vice versa)?
Can bayesian persuasion increase the effectiveness of normative feedback and nudges for behavioural change?
How do people become desensitised to social norms and moral costs?

Feel free to email me at n.umashev@icloud.com if you have any projects, ideas, or just want to say G'day.