Michela Carlana Wins the Econ JM Best Paper Award

THE PHD CANDIDATE'S AWARD WINNING JOB MARKET PAPER, PRESENTED TODAY IN BARCELONA, MEASURES THE EFFECTS OF TEACHERS' GENDER BIAS ON THE PERFORMANCE, EDUCATIONAL CAREERS AND SELFESTEEM OF FEMALE STUDENTS

In these very hours Michela Carlana, a PhD in Economics and Finance candidate from Bocconi, is presenting at the Symposium of the Spanish Economic Association in Barcelona her job market paper, winner of the Econ JM Best Paper Award of Unicredit & Universities.
 
In his Stereotypes and Self-Stereotypes: Evidence from Teachers' Gender Bias, Carlana measures the effect of teachers’ gender stereotypes on students’ performance, choice of high school and self-esteem. The scholar invited teachers of a hundred Italian middle schools to undertake a test able to identify gender stereotypes and then cross-checked the data with the results of standardized school tests, the choice of high school and a students’ self-esteem test. While stereotypes seem to have no effect on males, females pay a significant toll to teachers’ prejudices about their scientific and mathematical abilities, in terms of performance, choice of non-scientific educational paths and self-esteem.
 
The researcher works to promote girls' STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) skills also through Girls Code It Better, an initiative coordinated by a private employment agency, which wants to familiarize Italian middle school girls with activities such as coding and printing in 3D.
 
After a MSc in a joint program of University of Padua and University of California Los Angeles, Carlana enrolled in Bocconi’s PhD in Economics and Finance, spending one year as a visiting student at Harvard. She also spent one year at the Institute for International Economic Studies in Stockholm, thanks to a Marie Curie Fellowship from the European Commission.
 
Carlana's other research interest (see this page for details) is immigration. She is studying the educational paths of immigrants, also in relation to teachers’ stereotypes, and the effects of a mass immigration on marriages and fertility of local people, using, in the latter case, data regarding the massive immigration that affected the United States between 1910 and 1930.
 
“I'll complete my PhD in early 2018", says the young scholar,"and in the next month I'll face some interesting interviews at the job markets in Barcelona, London and Philadelphia”.

by Fabio Todesco