Jamie McCasland

Chapter 2 examines the role of communication in shaping misperceptions about masculinity norms among teenage boys and girls in an experiment in the school environment. I document that most students overestimate the share of classmates who hold traditional views of masculinity with respect to emotional vulnerability and the use of violence. I randomly assigned boys and girls to a one-time discussion session in which they were asked to share their private views about these masculinity beliefs. Immediately and 3-weeks after the discussion, students’ misperceptions about classmates’ beliefs narrowed by at least 50%, similarly for boys and girls. The effects are similar whether students self-select into speaking or were randomly selected. In addition, I provide evidence that boys’ private views about masculinity become more progressive, and that masculine-relevant behaviours such as involvement in violence and emotional vulnerability are not affected after three weeks. In Chapter 3, I investigate whether the election of a far-right sexist politician – Bolsonaro, in Brazil – impacts violence against women, considering the election outcome as an information shock with the potential to impact perceived sexist gender norms. I combine a rich set of administrative data on crimes, hospitalization and election outcomes to build a municipality month balanced panel to estimate the effects of interest. I employ a triple difference design which allows me to compare whether more sexist municipalities - proxied by higher vote share - had a larger increase in violence against women, compared to men, after his election. I do not find evidence that Bolsonaro’s election increased different types of violence against women. Finally, Chapter 4 exploits the role of psychedelic intake on labour market outcomes. We partner with two ayahuasca centres in Brazil to obtain the full record of participants who have attended their ayahuasca ceremonies and link participants with the rich formal labour market data in Brazil. We were able to successfully link 42.5% of participants. Employing frontier difference-in-difference estimators, we show that ayahuasca ceremony attendees are 23 percentage points more likely to leave the formal labour market. We find no effects on the wages of those who continue in the formal labour market.

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