Anya Samek
Biographic Data
| ID | 1086140 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anya Samek |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anya |
| FAMILY NAME | Samek |
| SIGNATURE | SAMEK A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Southern California |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0908-3079 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 34 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Impact of Consequence Information on Insurance Choice
Individuals frequently make insurance choices that appear sub-optimal, possibly reflecting difficulty mapping insurance contracts to their distribution of financial consequences. We develop and experimentally test a decision aid that provides this mapping in two experiments mirroring typical health insurance decisions. Compared to standard feature-based information, our distributionbased tool substantially reduces dominance violations and changes…
Attitudes Toward Uncertain Risks
Detecting Drivers of Behavior at an Early Age
We use field experiments with nearly 900 children to investigate how skills developed at ages 3-5 drive later-life outcomes. We find that skills map onto three distinct factors - cognitive skills, executive functions, and economic preferences. Returning to the children up to 7 years later, we find that executive functions, but not cognitive skills, predict the likelihood of receiving disciplinary referrals. Economic preferences have an independen…
Spanish-Speaking Hispanic/Latino Families Education-Related Parental Involvement Practices
Under current and prominent definitions, the rates of parental involvement among Hispanic/Latino families have been historically low. However, empirical evidence suggests that parental involvement can be perceived/practiced in varied ways. This work explored these perceptions held by Spanish-speaking Hispanic/Latino families through focus groups ( n = 10) and individual interviews ( n = 23) with parents of school-age children. Findings suggest th…
Heterogeneity in place effects on health
Minority and low-SES families’ experiences during the early phases of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis
Readily available crisis-oriented resources, for both children and parents, are needed to help families maintain or rebuild their sense of control over their lives during the early phases of a collective crisis (e.g., pandemic). Although early observations help to contextual families' initial experiences, examining long-term trends can inform meaningful policies and practices that both support how low-SES families buffer against COVID-19-related …
Incentives to Eat Healthily
We use a field experiment with over 200 participants to investigate the effect of incentives on grocery store purchases. We randomize participants to treatments where we incentivize produce purchases, provide tips for produce preparation, or both, and follow shopping behaviour for 6 months. Our informational treatment has a weak effect. However, we find an important price effect: modest incentives quadruple produce purchasing at our grocery store…
Behavioral Impediments to Valuing Annuities
This paper examines two behavioral factors that diminish people's ability to value a lifetime income stream or annuity, drawing on a randomized experiment with about 4,000 adults in a U.S. nationally representative sample. We find that increasing the complexity of the annuity choice reduces respondents' ability to value the annuity, measured by the difference between the sell and buy values they assign to the annuity. When we limit narrow choice …
The Effect of Early-Childhood Education on Social Preferences
We present results from the first study to examine the causal impact of early childhood education on the social preferences of children. We compare children who, at 3-4 years old, were randomized into either a full-time preschool, a parenting program, or a control group. We returned to the children when they reached 6-8 years of age and conducted a series of incentivized experiments to elicit their social preferences. We find that early childhood…
Combining behavioral economics and field experiments to reimagine early childhood education
Behavioral economics and field experiments within the social sciences have advanced well beyond academic curiosum. Governments around the globe as well as the most powerful firms in modern economies employ staffs of behavioralists and experimentalists to advance and test best practices. In this study, we combine behavioral economics with field experiments to reimagine a new model of early childhood education. Our approach has three distinct featu…
No Regrets
Field experiments on food choice in grocery stores
Food bundling as a health nudge
Effects of Monitoring on Mortgage Delinquency
In the wake of the housing crisis in 2008, U.S. policymakers have developed a range of policy proposals to address the risk of mortgage borrowers going into payment default. Some of these proposed regulations would effectively eliminate certain loans with riskier borrower characteristics from the market. Such prescriptive approaches fail to recognize alternatives that permit riskier loans to be made, but require postorigination practices designed…
The Effect of Early-Childhood Education on Social Preferences
We present results from the first study to examine the causal impact of early childhood education on the social preferences of children. We compare children who, at 3-4 years old, were randomized into either a full-time preschool, a parenting program, or a control group. We returned to the children when they reached 6-8 years of age and conducted a series of incentivized experiments to elicit their social preferences. We find that early childhood…
Effects of Monitoring on Mortgage Delinquency
In the wake of the housing crisis in 2008, U.S. policymakers have developed a range of policy proposals to address the risk of mortgage borrowers going into payment default. Some of these proposed regulations would effectively eliminate certain loans with riskier borrower characteristics from the market. Such prescriptive approaches fail to recognize alternatives that permit riskier loans to be made, but require postorigination practices designed…
Food bundling as a health nudge
Detecting Drivers of Behavior at an Early Age
We use field experiments with nearly 900 children to investigate how skills developed at ages 3-5 drive later-life outcomes. We find that skills map onto three distinct factors - cognitive skills, executive functions, and economic preferences. Returning to the children up to 7 years later, we find that executive functions, but not cognitive skills, predict the likelihood of receiving disciplinary referrals. Economic preferences have an independen…
Spanish-Speaking Hispanic/Latino Families Education-Related Parental Involvement Practices
Under current and prominent definitions, the rates of parental involvement among Hispanic/Latino families have been historically low. However, empirical evidence suggests that parental involvement can be perceived/practiced in varied ways. This work explored these perceptions held by Spanish-speaking Hispanic/Latino families through focus groups ( n = 10) and individual interviews ( n = 23) with parents of school-age children. Findings suggest th…
Minority and low-SES families’ experiences during the early phases of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis
Readily available crisis-oriented resources, for both children and parents, are needed to help families maintain or rebuild their sense of control over their lives during the early phases of a collective crisis (e.g., pandemic). Although early observations help to contextual families' initial experiences, examining long-term trends can inform meaningful policies and practices that both support how low-SES families buffer against COVID-19-related …
No Regrets
Field experiments on food choice in grocery stores
Effects of Monitoring on Mortgage Delinquency
In the wake of the housing crisis in 2008, U.S. policymakers have developed a range of policy proposals to address the risk of mortgage borrowers going into payment default. Some of these proposed regulations would effectively eliminate certain loans with riskier borrower characteristics from the market. Such prescriptive approaches fail to recognize alternatives that permit riskier loans to be made, but require postorigination practices designed…
Combining behavioral economics and field experiments to reimagine early childhood education
Behavioral economics and field experiments within the social sciences have advanced well beyond academic curiosum. Governments around the globe as well as the most powerful firms in modern economies employ staffs of behavioralists and experimentalists to advance and test best practices. In this study, we combine behavioral economics with field experiments to reimagine a new model of early childhood education. Our approach has three distinct featu…
No Regrets
Field experiments on food choice in grocery stores
Food bundling as a health nudge
The Effect of Early-Childhood Education on Social Preferences
We present results from the first study to examine the causal impact of early childhood education on the social preferences of children. We compare children who, at 3-4 years old, were randomized into either a full-time preschool, a parenting program, or a control group. We returned to the children when they reached 6-8 years of age and conducted a series of incentivized experiments to elicit their social preferences. We find that early childhood…
Behavioral Impediments to Valuing Annuities
This paper examines two behavioral factors that diminish people's ability to value a lifetime income stream or annuity, drawing on a randomized experiment with about 4,000 adults in a U.S. nationally representative sample. We find that increasing the complexity of the annuity choice reduces respondents' ability to value the annuity, measured by the difference between the sell and buy values they assign to the annuity. When we limit narrow choice …
Heterogeneity in place effects on health
Minority and low-SES families’ experiences during the early phases of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis
Readily available crisis-oriented resources, for both children and parents, are needed to help families maintain or rebuild their sense of control over their lives during the early phases of a collective crisis (e.g., pandemic). Although early observations help to contextual families' initial experiences, examining long-term trends can inform meaningful policies and practices that both support how low-SES families buffer against COVID-19-related …
Incentives to Eat Healthily
We use a field experiment with over 200 participants to investigate the effect of incentives on grocery store purchases. We randomize participants to treatments where we incentivize produce purchases, provide tips for produce preparation, or both, and follow shopping behaviour for 6 months. Our informational treatment has a weak effect. However, we find an important price effect: modest incentives quadruple produce purchasing at our grocery store…
Spanish-Speaking Hispanic/Latino Families Education-Related Parental Involvement Practices
Under current and prominent definitions, the rates of parental involvement among Hispanic/Latino families have been historically low. However, empirical evidence suggests that parental involvement can be perceived/practiced in varied ways. This work explored these perceptions held by Spanish-speaking Hispanic/Latino families through focus groups ( n = 10) and individual interviews ( n = 23) with parents of school-age children. Findings suggest th…
Detecting Drivers of Behavior at an Early Age
We use field experiments with nearly 900 children to investigate how skills developed at ages 3-5 drive later-life outcomes. We find that skills map onto three distinct factors - cognitive skills, executive functions, and economic preferences. Returning to the children up to 7 years later, we find that executive functions, but not cognitive skills, predict the likelihood of receiving disciplinary referrals. Economic preferences have an independen…
The Impact of Consequence Information on Insurance Choice
Individuals frequently make insurance choices that appear sub-optimal, possibly reflecting difficulty mapping insurance contracts to their distribution of financial consequences. We develop and experimentally test a decision aid that provides this mapping in two experiments mirroring typical health insurance decisions. Compared to standard feature-based information, our distributionbased tool substantially reduces dominance violations and changes…
Attitudes Toward Uncertain Risks
Psychology (9 works) · Economics (8 works) · Medicine (7 works) · Business (5 works) · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics (4 works) · Developmental psychology (4 works) · Microeconomics (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Actuarial science (3 works)