Puneet Arora

Puneet Arora

Assistant Professor, Economics and Public Policy

Management Development Institute, Gurgaon

Biography

I am an Assistant Professor in the Economics and Public Policy area at the Management Development Institute, Gurgaon. I am an economist with research interests in the area of behavioral and experimental economics, applied in the contexts of education, household finance and organizational ethics. I conduct field, lab and online experiments to study behavioral biases in human behavior. My research also studies the issue of identity based discrimination in different contexts.

I received my PhD in Economics degree in 2020 from Georgia State University, an MA degree in Economics degree in 2013 from Delhi School of Economics, and a BA Honors in Economics degree in 2009 from Hansraj College, University of Delhi.

Interests
  • Behavioral & Experimental Economics
  • Education
  • Household Finance
  • Ethics and Morality
Education

  • PhD in Economics, 2020

    Georgia State University

  • MA in Economics, 2013

    Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi

  • BA(H) in Economics, 2009

    Hans Raj College, University of Delhi

Experience

 
 
 
 
 
Assistant Professor
Economics and Public Policy, Management Development Institute Gurgaon
Apr 2023 – Present Gurugram
 
 
 
 
 
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Faculty of Business Administration, Prague University of Economics and Business
Sep 2022 – Mar 2023 Prague
 
 
 
 
 
Assistant Professor
Ahmedabad University
Jul 2020 – Jun 2022 Ahmedabad
 
 
 
 
 
Assistant Professor
Indian School of Business and Finance, Delhi
Jul 2015 – Jun 2016 Delhi

Selected Publications

Puneet Arora, Ishtiaque Fazlul, Tareena Musaddiq, Abhinav Vats (2022). Can social recognition for teachers and principals improve student performance? Evidence from India. In Applied Economics Letters.

DOI

Nicholas Wright, Puneet Arora (2022). A For Effort - Incomplete Information and College Students' Academic Performance. In Economics of Education Review.

DOI

Puneet Arora, Nicholas Wright (2022). Grade reporting and student performance. In Education Economics.

DOI

Puneet Arora, Alberto Chong (2018). Government effectiveness in the provision of public goods - the role of institutional quality. In Journal of Applied Economics.

PDF DOI

Working Papers

Can rank-based non-monetary rewards improve student attendance? Experimental Evidence from India (with T. Musaddiq) - Under Review
Student absenteeism is an important concern for many academic institutions around the world. We test whether a rank-based attendance game, incentivized by non-monetary rewards, improves attendance at a soft skills training school in India. We randomly assigned 3784 students, studying in 216 classrooms to control and treatment groups. On average, we find a positive but statistically insignificant effect of the treatment on attendance rates. However, we find the intervention increases attendance for students in the middle and lower end of the attendance distribution by 3.8-6.5 percentage points, depending on their ranking in the distribution and the number of students they compete with. Our heterogeneity analysis suggests that such an intervention may be more effective for students of school-going age, particularly boys and low-ability students.
I Promise to Work Hard - The Impact of Written Pledges on Student Performance (with N. Wright and J. Wright)
Students often start a course with high expectations and an ambitious plan of action. Some instructors use goal-inducing non-binding commitment pledges to nudge students to follow through on their intended course of action. Using a field experiment, we asked treated students to set a goal grade, identify the actions they will take to achieve it, and sign a commitment pledge to work towards this grade. We find that while treated students pledged a greater time commitment and targeted a higher grade, their overall test scores decrease by 0.23 standard deviations and they were 15 percentage points less likely to pass the course.
Are Students Really Biased against Female Professors? Experimental Evidence from India (with M. Roy) - Under Review
We investigate the presence of gender bias in student evaluation of teaching (SET) scores with a natural field experiment in India. We employ a novel experimental design, randomly assigning 504 economics students to an identical audiovisual class taught either in a female or male voice. We find no significant differences in ratings given between female or male professors across any teaching dimension. However, when additional information about a professor’s professional accomplishments is provided, female professors receive higher ratings on average. The effect comes mainly from female students, who increase the ratings of female professors and lower the ratings of male professors. Our findings suggest that gender bias is context-dependent and provide evidence of the effectiveness of an information mechanism that can help shift perceptions about female professors.
Loan Choice, Anchoring and Framing Effect
Borrowers face a menu of similar-looking options while selecting a loan. Previous studies have hinted at the anchoring role of Annual Percentage Rate (APR) and Total Cost (TC) of the loan plan in such decisions, however, it is unclear whether subjects can cognitively select an optimal loan. Through a framed laboratory experiment, I found that subjects were 78% likely to state a suboptimal preference ordering and 68% likely to select a dominated loan plan. There is associational evidence on the use of APR or Total Cost (TC) anchors, and causal evidence of framing effect bias, with subjects switching their choice of the anchor as the loan information frame changed. These findings pose serious questions about an individual’s understanding of loan-related attributes and emphasize the need for education programs to build citizens’ financial capability.
Maximum Points, Test Scores and Effort on the Test Itself (with I. Tripathi and A. Jain) - Under Review
Assessment tests are used extensively to measure student learning. Other than ability and prior preparation, student performance reflects their intrinsic motivation to do well on the test, affecting their effort on the test itself. We experimentally increase the numerosity (magnitude) of maximum points on the test to create an illusion of a more rewarding test and nudge students to exert higher effort on the test. Tested in three different settings, we find insignificant treatment effects in the high-stake test context (Setting 1) and low-stake test context (Setting 2) when an incorrect response does not attract a negative penalty. However, in a high-stake test context, when an incorrect response attracts a penalty (Setting 3), we find the likelihood of getting the question correct increases by 9.5 pp, with stronger effects on male (16 pp) and above-median ability (16 pp) students. We discuss increasing mental effort as the potential mechanism driving the effects.
Group Accountability and Tax Compliance (with S. Kim)
One of the Internal Revenue Services’ methods for audit is to pick individuals engaged in transactions with other taxpayers whose tax returns were selected for audit. This group accountability (GA) in the audit mechanism introduces an externality where one’s action affects the likelihood of others being audited. It can induce a different tax compliance behavior compared to the individual accountability (IA) audit mechanism, where an individual is selected randomly for audit. We study the effectiveness of GA against IA treatment using a lab experiment, and find that GA treatment increases the mean tax compliance by 6.6 pp (intensive margin) and full tax compliance rate by 12.7 pp (extensive margin). We also report how this impact changes as we vary the audit rate, group size and degree of anonymity among group members.

Research-in-Progress

Stigma and Prisoners (with L. Cingl and V. Korbel) - Manuscript in preparation
Feb 10, 2023
Women Playing by Inefficient Rules- Evidence from Academia (with I.Tripathi and K. Trivedi) - Manuscript in preparation
Jul 10, 2022
Conversations and Investment - An experimental study (with G. Dhamija and D. Nagori) - Manuscript in preparation
May 10, 2022

Teaching

Management Development Institute (MDI) Gurgaon (April 2023-present)

  • Ethics in Public Service (2023-24)
  • Business Ethics (2023-24)
  • Corporate Social Responsibility (2023-24)
  • Managerial Economics (2023-24)

Amrut Mody School of Management, Ahmedabad University (August 2020-June 2022)

  • Empirical Research Methods for Economics (Winter 2022 - Post Graduate course)
  • Experimental and Behavioural Economics (Monsoon 2021 - Post Graduate course)
  • Principles of Microeconomics (2021, 2022 - Undergraduate course)
  • Principles of Macroeconomics (2021 - Undergraduate course)

Indian School of Business and Finance (2013-14 and 2015-16)

  • Principles of Microeconomics (Undergraduate course)
  • Intermediate Microeconomics (Undergraduate course)
  • Mathematical Economics (Undergraduate course)

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