This study aims to examine if schools in Sweden discriminate against same-sex parents in their hospitality and information about enrollment. We know from existing economic research that homosexuals are subject to prejudice, which has led to them being discriminated against in both the housing and labor market. However, little is known about if the prejudice also affects homosexuals’ children’s opportunities to enroll in a preferred school. To examine this, we conducted a field experiment where we sent inquiries to 1,876 elementary schools in Sweden. Each school was randomly assigned to receive an inquiry from either a straight, gay, or lesbian parent couple. When the data collection was completed, we compared the number of responses that each couple received. We also measured how often the responses included a salutation, an invitation to visit, and a promising placement response for their child. Our results revealed that both private and rural schools tended to discriminate against same-sex parents in their hospitality and information about the school. More specifically, gay and lesbian parents had a lower probability of receiving an invitation to visit private schools compared to straight parents. Lesbian parents were also found to have a lower probability than straight parents of receiving a reply to their inquiry if they contacted a school in a rural municipality. Lastly, we observed that lesbian parents had an advantage in receiving an invitation to visit the school if the principal was a man. / Denna studie syftar till att undersöka om svenska skolor diskriminerar samkönade föräldrar gällande gästfrihet och information om inskrivning. Från tidigare ekonomisk litteratur är det känt att homosexuella är diskriminerade på både arbets- och bostadsmarknaden. Däremot finns det få studier om hur fördomar mot homosexuella föräldrar påverkar deras barns chanser att komma in på en föredragen skola. För att undersöka detta genomförde vi ett fältexperiment där vi skickade förfrågningar till 1 876 grundskolor i Sverige. Varje skola blev slumpmässigt tilldelad att ta emot en förfrågan från antingen ett hetero, gay eller lesbiskt föräldrapar. Efter att datainsamlingen var genomförd jämförde vi antalet svar som varje föräldrapar fick. Vi mätte också hur ofta svaren inkluderade en hälsning, en besöksinbjudan samt ett lovande placeringssvar för barnet. Våra resultat visade att både privata skolor och skolor på landsbygden tenderade att diskriminera samkönade föräldrar i deras gästfrihet och information om skolan. Mer specifikt hade gay och lesbiska föräldrar lägre sannolikhet att få en inbjudan till att besöka privata skolor till skillnad från heterosexuella föräldrar. Lesbiska föräldrar hade också lägre sannolikhet att få svar på sin förfrågan om skolan som kontaktades låg i en landsbygdskommun än vad heterosexuella föräldrar hade. Slutligen observerade vi att lesbiska föräldrar hade en fördel i att få en besöksinbjudan om rektorn var en man.

This paper investigated the discrimination against transgender people in the Swedish rental housing market, and is one of the first correspondence studies to examine this question at hand. A total of 800 applications were sent to various landlords advertising rental vacancies on Blocket.se. In total, the cisgender applicants attained a call back rate of 60.7 %, while the transgender applicants attained a rate of 59.0 %. Furthermore, no unequal treatment was found in positive employer responses for being transgender, when compared to the cisgender group. In the case, where the cisgender and transgender groups were evaluated separately, a favoring of having a woman as a tenant over a man was prominent when comparing the testers within the cisgender  group.  A penalty of 12.6 % in positive landlord responses was found for the trans man, in terms of likelihood of getting an invitation to additional contact or to showing, when compared to the cis woman. Similarly, the trans woman had a 7.4 % lesser likelihood in getting an invitation to showing than the cis woman. With regards to these results, one can conclude that there exists both discrimination based on gender and gender identity in the rental housing market in Sweden.

The advance and ubiquitous use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have changed how humans learn and reform the education sector. Although related topics have been studied in other disciplines (e.g., behavioral science, economics, psychology, etc.), IS researchers have paid less attention to the impacts of information communication technology on education (IICTE). Recently, education in the post-pandemic world calls for further investigation on this topic since most of the traditional on-site teaching around the world have moved online. The proposed two studies aim to contribute to the IS and the economics research on the role of technology in education and the underlying mechanisms of how ICT affects learning through a series of field experiments and data mining methods. The first study examines in-class mobile device use effects on students’ learning performance via a field experiment. It explores students’ attention allocation at an individual level with live video feed data. We collaborated with a vocational school in China to examine the effect of using smartphones in the classroom on students’ academic performance. We randomly allocated students taking one lecture in Chinese verbal into three experimental conditions: (i) smartphone banned; (ii) smartphone allowed and used at will by students, and (iii) smartphone allowed, used at will by students and relied upon by teachers to assist instruction. We measure the performance gain of students by the change in the scores they obtained in identical tests taken at the beginning and the end of the lecture. We find that allowing students to use smartphones during the lecture at will reduced performance by 12% (6.3 points on a 100-point scale) compared to when students could not take the smartphones into the classroom. However, allowing smartphones into the classroom and asking teachers to actively use them to assist instruction increased their performance by 20% (10.6 points). These results are driven mainly by already strong students and students in IT-related majors. To unravel the underlying mechanisms that drive the observed effects, we use video feeds collected during our experiment, allowing us to code the time students spent learning versus being distracted, with or without their smartphones. We observed that students spent a similar amount of time learning versus being distracted across all three experimental conditions. Thus, the time students allocate to learning in each condition does not predict performance. Instead, what matters for their performance is the relative time they spent learning versus being distracted when using their smartphones. We show that the increase in performance when smartphones are used to assist instruction comes from students spending a larger percentage of the time learning during the lecture. Our findings contribute to the literature on technology-assisted learning and offer practical and policy implications that teachers and schools can follow to cautiously allow smartphones in the classroom to improve student success. The second study investigates the effects of different Internet access policies on student performance via a field experiment and examines the underlying mechanisms of its impact by mining students’ online and offline behaviors. While universities invest a considerable amount to keep up with the increasing demand for Internet connectivity on campus, sufficient doubt exists on the overall efficacy of information communication technologies (ICTs) in enhancing learning. Therefore, it is essential to understand how the Internet is used on campus and whether educational institutions can design their ICT policies to improve education. To answer this question, we seek to investigate the effects of different Internet policies on educational outcomes (i.e., grades, other evaluation results, etc.) by conducting a randomized field experiment at a national public university in China. Specifically, we randomly assigned students to five experimental conditions for a whole semester: low bandwidth and limited data, low bandwidth with unlimited data, high bandwidth with limited data, high bandwidth with unlimited data, and high-quality access (high bandwidth without data limit) yet limited data to entertainment. We then collect and compare the educational outcomes and each student’s online and offline behaviors across all five conditions. With our unique context and micro-level data, we investigate the overall effect of different policies as well as the dynamics of students’ online and offline learning behaviors (i.e., online learning time, online-offline behavior change, etc.) to understand the underlying mechanisms (i.e., online/offline learning patterns on performance). Our study is the first to investigate the effect of ICT policy design on educational outcomes using a randomized controlled trial (RCT). We also offer practical guidelines to policymakers and educational institutions on optimizing campus Internet access to help improve students’ learning with the proper use of ICT. Ultimately, studies in this dissertation attempt to explore how ICT could boost learning and thus extend the boundary of IS research to the education sector. Results demonstrated in the dissertation offer clear and straightforward evidence for educators, parents, and students to make their own ICT use policies. / Business Administration/Management Information Systems

In the context of climate change and heightened concerns about our energy future, academics and policy makers have taken an interest in the different motivational factors influencing individuals’ energy-use behavior. One area of particular interest is the role of information and other non-financial motivators: When traditional financial incentives are not appropriate or inadequate, are there alternative means we can use to encourage energy conservation? Our research looks at the effect of two different types of information programs used to promote household energy conservation: feedback and social nudges. To do this we conducted a field experiment at a family housing complex where the cost of electricity is included in the rent. Residents were presented with weekly Home Electricity Reports [HERs] with feedback on their electricity use. A portion of the residents additionally received HERs with information about how their electricity consumption compared to their neighbors (a social nudge). We then monitored households’ electricity-use to see if we could detect any changes. Overall we estimated a 1.4 percent reduction in energy-use as a result of the feedback treatment. This figure increased to a 3.9 percent reduction when the sample was restricted to households that received low-user status during the pre-treatment period. Low-users also appeared to react to the social nudge, however, the reaction depended on whether the household had received an HER indicating that it consumed above- or below- average the week before. Time-of-day analysis suggested that the majority of the changes in electricity-use behavior occurred during evening and night hours.

Driving field experiment data were used to investigate lane changes in which a slow lead vehicle was present to: 1) characterize lane changes, 2) develop predictive models, 3) provide collision avoidance system (CAS) design guidelines. A total of 3,227 slow lead vehicle lane changes over 23,949 miles were completed by sixteen commuters. Two instrumented vehicles, a sedan and an SUV, were outfitted with video, sensor, and radar data systems that collected data in an unobtrusive manner. Results indicate that 37.2% of lane changes are slow lead vehicle lane changes, with a mean completion time of 6.3 s; most slow lead vehicle lane changes are leftward, rated low in urgency and severity. A stratified sample of 120 lane changes was selected to include a range of maneuvers. On the interstate, lane changes are performed less often, <i>t</i>(30) = 2.83, <i>p</i> = 0.008, with lower urgency ratings, <i>F</i>(1, 31) = 5.24, <i>p</i> = 0.05, as compared to highway lane changes, as interstates are designed for smooth flow. Drivers who usually drive sedans are more likely to make lane changes than drivers of SUVs, <i>X</i> ²⁺(1)= 99.6247, <i>p</i> < 0.0001, suggesting that driving style is maintained regardless of which experimental vehicle is driven. Turn signals are used 64% of the time but some drivers signal after the lane change starts. Of cases in which signals are not used, 70% of them are made with other vehicles nearby. Eyeglance analysis revealed that the forward view, rearview mirror, and left mirror are the most likely glance locations. There are also distinct eyeglance patterns for lane changing and baseline driving. Recommendations are to use forward view or mirror-based visual displays to indicate presence detection, and auditory displays for imminent warnings. The "vehicle + signal" logistic regression model is best overall since it takes advantage of the distance to the front and rear adjacent vehicle, forward time-to-collision (TTC), and turn signal activation. The use of additional regressors would also improve the model. Five design guidelines are included to aid in the development of CAS that are useable, safe, and integrated with other systems, given testing and development. / Ph. D.

This thesis consists of four empirical studies on ethnic integration in the Swedish labor market. Studies I-III draw on a field experiment testing ethnic discrimination in the hiring process. Study I documents the existence of employer discrimination in response to equally merited applications with Arabic/African or Swedish names, and shows that foreign-named applicants have to send twice as many applications to receive a callback compared to Swedish-named applicants. Results also suggest that employers in female-dense occupations practice ethnic and gender compensation while employers in male-dense occupations practice only gender compensation. Study II reveals gendered differences in the intensity of employer stereotypes by testing how much more work experience is needed to eliminate the disadvantage of having an Arabic name on a job application. Results indicate a reverse gender gap, as initial differences in call-backs disappear for female applicants when CVs for Arabic-named applications are enhanced but remain strong and significant for male applicants. Study III evaluates criticism directed at residual analysis and field experiments that claims that they tell us nothing about real world discrimination and its long-term effects. By combining experimental and register data, Study III responds to this criticism by showing that the results of Study I correspond closely with real world labor market inequality of identical ‘twins’ (identified through propensity score matching) to the fictive individuals of Study I. Study IV explores the strategies underlying surname change from a Middle Eastern name to a more Swedish sounding one, drawing on 45 interviews with surname changers with a Middle Eastern background. The results indicate that immigrant name change is a pragmatic assimilation strategy. The study also illustrates how the institutional enabling of name change both creates and enables pragmatic assimilation. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Submitted. Paper 2: Submitted. Paper 3: Manuscript.</p>

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Researchers in the field of social learning have suggested that certain biases may exist in whom animals learn from, creating a non-random flow of social information. A number of potential biases have been proposed based upon theoretical models, including biases to copy more dominant individuals or individuals who receive the best payoff from their behaviour, but empirical evidence for these biases is lacking. This thesis presents the first examination of dominance-based bias in a wild population of primates and of a payoff-based bias in captive capuchins. In two field experiments, dominant and low-ranking females from each of three wild groups of vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops pygerythrus) in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa were trained to demonstrate contrasting behaviours to their group before observers were provided with a choice between the two modelled preferences. No evidence was found for a consistent bias to copy the behaviour of the dominant female in either experiment. Instead, in both experiments, a preference for one behaviour emerged, regardless of model rank. In the latter experiment, higher-ranking females were significantly more likely to match the dominant model's action than were low-ranking females. The low-ranking models were more likely than their high-ranking counterparts to switch behaviours, despite their trained behaviour continuing to be productive. An analyses of the observations revealed that observers were biased towards attending to kin, and observer age appeared to influence access to the dominant models, but no overall preference to attend to the dominant female was found. Together these findings indicate that kinship, sex, age and preferences for specific behaviours are more important factors than model rank in vervet monkey social learning. Finally, I examined whether captive tufted capuchins (Sapajus apella) utilized a payoff-based social learning bias in their foraging decisions. Subjects did not utilize public information when choosing between demonstrated resource-rich and resource-poor sites, suggesting that the social learning abilities of capuchins may not extend to determining the profitability of feeding sites, although limitations of the study are discussed.

Pour répondre aux besoins des populations humaines, l'agriculture est de plus en plus intensive, utilisant un très grand nombre d'engrais azotés pour augmenter les rendements. Ces engrais sont utilisés parce que l'azote est l'un des facteurs les plus important et limitant pour la croissance des plantes. L’azote sous forme de nitrate est soumis à des problématiques de pollutions pouvant affecter l’environnement ainsi que la santé humaine. Les défis de l'agriculture de demain sont donc de faire face à une population toujours plus nombreuse, tout en limitant l'impact sur notre environnement. C’est pour cela que la recherche et l’agriculture se questionnent de plus en plus sur l’utilisation d’autres produits comme les biostimulants ou des inhibiteurs, afin de limiter les intrants tout en conservant un taux de productivité viable. Une solution consisterait à agir sur les microorganismes du sol liés au cycle de l’azote afin de limiter les pertes des agrosystèmes en azote via le dégagement de gaz à effet de serre (N2O), de lessivage ou/et de volatilisation. En effet, dans les sols, le nitrate est également utilisé par les bactéries dites dénitrifiantes qui le réduisent en N2O (gaz à effet de serre) et N2, représentant alors une perte d’azote pour les cultures et une augmentation de la pollution atmosphérique. Par conséquent, les plantes sont en compétition directe avec ces bactéries pour l'assimilation du nitrate. Récemment, l’équipe encadrante de cette thèse a mis en évidence une stratégie développée par certaines plantes consistant en la production de métabolites secondaires : les procyanidines, qui inhibent la dénitrification des communautés microbiennes du sol. Les procyanidines ont la capacité d’inhiber, chez les bactéries dénitrifiantes, la première étape de la dénitrification transformant le nitrate en nitrite et ainsi d’empêcher l’utilisation du nitrate, sans toutefois exercer un effet antibactérien. Cette stratégie permet de conserver par conséquent le nitrate dans le sol, celui-ci pouvant alors être utilisé par les plantes pour leur nutrition et leur croissance. L’objectif principal de cette thèse a été d’évaluer l’effet de l’application de procyanidines exogènes à plusieurs concentrations en champs sur un modèle de plante d’intérêt économique, la laitue, ainsi que sur différents types de sols. Ces effets ont également été testés sur un autre modèle d’intérêt économique consommatrice d’azote, le céleri. Au cours de ces expérimentations, des mesures ont été effectuées sur (i) l’activité microbienne de dénitrification, (ii) les traits végétaux en lien avec la croissance et (iii) l’abondance des communautés bactériennes dénitrifiantes. Nos résultats montrent une induction d'un BDI en champs, une conservation du nitrate induisant à son tour une amélioration de la croissance des végétaux et une contre sélection par la plante des dénitrifiants. L’autre point abordé, plutôt fondamental mais qui a moins abouti faute de temps, consistait à mettre en évidence via l’utilisation de mutants d’Arabidopsis thaliana affectés dans la production des procyanidines ou surproduisant les procyanidines, un retour vers la plante de l’azote détourné suite au BDI / To meet the needs of human populations, agriculture is increasingly intensive, using a very large number of nitrogen fertilizers to increase yields. These fertilizers are used because nitrogen is one of the most important and limiting factors for plant growth. Nitrogen in the form of nitrate is subject to pollution problems that can affect the environment and human health. The challenges for tomorrow's agriculture are therefore to face an ever-increasing population, while limiting the impact on our environment. This is why research and agriculture are increasingly questioning the use of other products such as biostimulants or inhibitors, in order to limit inputs while maintaining a viable productivity rate. One solution would be to act on soil microorganisms linked to the nitrogen cycle in order to limit nitrogen losses from agrosystems through greenhouse gas (N2O) emissions, leaching and/or volatilization. Indeed, in soils, nitrate is also used by so-called denitrifying bacteria, which reduce it to N2O (greenhouse gases) and N2, representing a loss of nitrogen for crops and an increase in air pollution. As a result, plants compete directly with these bacteria for the assimilation of nitrate. Recently, the supervising team of this thesis has highlighted a strategy developed by some plants consisting of the production of secondary metabolites: procyanidins, which inhibit the denitrification of soil microbial communities. Procyanidins have the ability to inhibit the first step of denitrification in denitrifying bacteria, transforming nitrate into nitrite and thus preventing the use of nitrate, without however exerting an antibacterial effect. This strategy therefore preserves the nitrate in the soil, which can then be used by plants for their nutrition and growth. The main objective of this thesis was to evaluate the effect of the application of exogenous procyanidins at several field concentrations on a plant model of economic interest, lettuce, as well as on different soil types. These effects have also been tested on another model of economic interest that consumes nitrogen, celery. During these experiments, measurements were made on (i) microbial denitrification activity, (ii) plant traits related to growth and (iii) the abundance of denitrifying bacterial communities. Our results show an induction of a BDI in the field, a conservation of nitrate inducing in turn an improvement in plant growth and a counter-selection by the plant of denitrifiers. The other point addressed, which was rather fundamental but less successful due to a lack of time, was to highlight, via the use of Arabidopsis thaliana mutants affected in the production of procyanidins or overproducing procyanidins, a return to the plant of nitrogen diverted following the BDI

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