{"id":18065,"date":"2026-02-17T10:30:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T10:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/nubsstaffblog\/?p=18065"},"modified":"2026-02-17T10:30:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T10:30:40","slug":"economics-research-seminar-dr-joseph-gomes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/nubsstaffblog\/2026\/02\/17\/economics-research-seminar-dr-joseph-gomes\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Research Seminar \u2013 Dr Joseph Gomes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Title<\/strong>: Symbolic Policies Cause Economic Harm: Cognitive and Behavioural Responses to Nationalist Exclusion<\/p>\n<p><strong>Date<\/strong>: 18 February 2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Time<\/strong>: 13:30 &#8211; 14:30<\/p>\n<p><strong>Venue:<\/strong> Online Only<\/p>\n<p><strong>Teams link:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/teams.microsoft.com\/meet\/36109521993017?p=K6M5mClqfQj7S4R7aD\">https:\/\/teams.microsoft.com\/meet\/36109521993017?p=K6M5mClqfQj7S4R7aD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you would like to attend, please register using the following link:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/forms.office.com\/pages\/responsepage.aspx?id=yRJQnBa2wkSpF2aBT74-hz-fP_3f-FxPhH06AeweumxUMTQxRVEyWjhCSDlSUTFHNUs4VVpLMEMzRSQlQCNjPTEu&amp;route=shorturl\">Economics Research Seminar &#8211;\u00a0Dr\u00a0Joseph Gomes<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Speaker:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Dr Joseph Gomes<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.google.com\/site\/josephfgomes\/Home\">Joseph Gomes<\/a> is an Associate Professor of Economics at the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/uclouvain.be\/en\/faculties\/espo\/esl\">Economics School of Louvain<\/a>\u00a0and the Research Director at the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/uclouvain.be\/en\/research-institutes\/lidam\/ires\">\u00a0Institute of Economic and Social Research (IRES)<\/a>\u00a0at UCLouvain; a\u00a0Research Affiliate at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cepr.org\/\">CEPR<\/a>\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/cepr.org\/content\/international-trade-and-regional-economics\">International Trade and Regional Economics<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cepr.org\/content\/development-economics\">Development Economics programmes<\/a>), and an Invited Researcher at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.povertyactionlab.org\/\">J-PAL<\/a>.\u00a0 His primary research interests are in the fields of Development Economics, Political Economy, and Spatial Economics, with a focus on Identity and Diversity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Abstract<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>Ethnonationalist governments adopt symbolic policies that challenge the status of ethnic and religious minorities as equal members of the nation. We propose that exposure to such policies reduces the cognitive bandwidth of marginalised groups, leading to suboptimal economic decisions. We test this hypothesis in India, where the Muslim minority population has faced exclusionary policies. About 1,800 gig workers performed data entry and information processing tasks in a field experiment. In the course of completing their tasks, workers were randomly exposed to social media content referencing symbolic exclusionary policies. We measured decision making by allowing workers to choose between two payment contracts, one of which would objectively lead to higher earnings for a given worker. Despite no change in productivity, treated participants were significantly more likely to select economically suboptimal (\u2018wrong\u2019) contracts, leading to lower earnings. We explore additional data, including cognitive tests and categorisations of mistakes, that suggest that wrong contract choice is driven by increased cognitive load. Our findings demonstrate how even purely symbolic exclusionary policies can have tangible economic consequences, potentially exacerbating marginalisation of minority groups through cognitive and psychological channels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Title: Symbolic Policies Cause Economic Harm: Cognitive and Behavioural Responses to Nationalist Exclusion Date: 18 February 2026 Time: 13:30 &#8211; 14:30 Venue: Online Only Teams&#8230; <br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/nubsstaffblog\/2026\/02\/17\/economics-research-seminar-dr-joseph-gomes\/\" rel=\"bookmark\"><strong>Read more<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11659,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[168,1004,210],"class_list":["post-18065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social","tag-economics","tag-economics-research-seminar","tag-research-seminar"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/nubsstaffblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/nubsstaffblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/nubsstaffblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/nubsstaffblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11659"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/nubsstaffblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/nubsstaffblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18066,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/nubsstaffblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18065\/revisions\/18066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/nubsstaffblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/nubsstaffblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.ncl.ac.uk\/nubsstaffblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}