We are pleased to announce that Ms. Qinyou Hu (Ph.D candidate in Economics, Rice University) will workshop her working paper at the ERG Workshop series on August 25, 2023, at 3pm-4pm (Central).
Short Bio: Qinyou Hu is a PhD candidate in Economics from Rice University. She specializes in applied microeconomics and development economics. Her research interests lie in policy-relevant questions broadly related to education, family dynamics, and health. She enjoys multidisciplinary discussions and has hands-on experience in designing and conducting field experiments. Her work has been published in the Review of Economics of the Household and the Journal of Human Capital.
Topic: Unveiling the Social Effect of Empathy Skill on School Bullying: Evidence from the Field
Abstract: Approximately one-third of global youth encounter bullying, but we're still grappling with how to effectively prevent it. Empathy, a crucial social-emotional skill, is believed to be negatively related to aggressive behaviors, yet the underlying mechanisms remain understudied. This paper fills these gaps by leveraging unique data obtained from conducting a randomized control trial of a parental involvement program on empathy development in middle schools in China. We find that the treated students improved their empathy and reduced bullying. Furthermore, offering this program also changed the social network structure: it increased friendship links, decreased isolation, and reduced the number of bully friends. To understand the mechanisms, we build and estimate a model composed of the empathy production function, network formation, and students' bullying decisions. The model reveals the individual human capital effect of empathy on bullying through private utility and the social effect through changes in the friendship network and associated peer effects. Decomposing the empathy effects, we find that the social effect is non-negligible, accounting for half of the empathy's human capital effect on reducing bullying. Ultimately, this study aims to foster the innovation of public policy to prevent bullying and violent behaviors more broadly.
Location: Virtual. Register in advance for this meeting: https://unt.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZArcuurqTsqEtz5AIXUN_SK_O35sD5anQ8k