SÉVERINE TOUSSAERT
http://cess.nyu.edu/sev/
st1445@nyu.edu
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
19 West 4th Street, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10012-1119
(646) 610 9813 Mobile
Placement Director: Alberto Bisin
Graduate Administrator: Marjorie Lesser
alberto.bisin@nyu.edu
(212) 998 8916
marjorie.lesser@nyu.edu (212) 998 8923
Education
Ph.D. in Economics, New York University
Thesis: Essays on Commitment and Flexibility: Theory and Experiments
Master in Economics, ENSAE and Paris School of Economics
Master in Economics and Public Policy, Sciences Po
Visiting student, University of Chicago
2010 – 2016 (exp)
2007 – 2009
2007 – 2009
2006 – 2007
References
Professor David Cesarini
NYU Department of Economics
19 West 4th Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10012-1119
(212) 998 3773
david.cesarini@nyu.edu
Professor Guillaume Fréchette
NYU Department of Economics
19 West 4th Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10012-1119
(212) 992 8683
frechette@nyu.edu
Professor Kfir Eliaz
Eitan Berglas School of Economics, Tel-Aviv University
P.O.B 39040, Ramat Aviv
Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel
(972) 03 640 7194
kfire@post.tau.ac.il
Professor Margaret Anne McConnell
Harvard School of Public Health
677 Huntington Ave Room 1-1217
Boston, MA 02115
(203) 745 8321
mmcconne@hsph.harvard.edu
Teaching and Research Fields
Behavioral Economics, Experimental Economics, Decision Theory
Teaching Experience
Experimental Economics (undergraduate), NYU, Teaching Fellow for Professor Fréchette
Economics Principles II, Microeconomics (undergraduate), NYU, Adjunct Professor
Principles of Macroeconomics (undergraduate), Sciences Po, Teaching Assistant
Research Experience
NYU Law School, Research Assistant for Visiting Professor Alexander Stremitzer
NYU Stern Business School, Research Assistant for Professor Ignacio Esponda
NYU Economics, Research Assistant for Professor Guillaume Fréchette
NYU Economics, Research Assistant for Professor Alberto Bisin
Sciences Po, Research Assistant for Professor Thierry Mayer
Sciences Po, Research Assistant for Professor David Laitin
Spring 2014
Summers 2012 – 2013
Spring 2010
Fall 2014
Summer 2014
Fall 2013
Fall 2013
Spring 2010
Spring 2009
Fellowships and Grants
McCracken Fellowship, NYU
NSF Doctoral Dissertation Grant, SES – 1260891
2010 – 2016
2012 – 2013
Seminars and Conference Presentations
2015: Behavioral Economics and Health Symposium (scheduled, Dec.) at UPenn LDI CHIBE, North American ESA
Conference (Dallas, TX), CESS Seminar at NYU, SBEE Seminar at University of Michigan, Brown Bag
Seminar at Aarhus University (Denmark), Lunch Seminar at NYU Steinhardt Dept. of Nutrition.
2014: North American ESA Conference (Fort Lauderdale, FL), CESS-CREED Conference (Amsterdam)
2013: North American ESA Conference (Santa Cruz, CA)
Academic Service
Referee for the American Economic Review, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Economic Inquiry
Languages
French: native, English: fluent, German: basic.
Research Papers
Eliciting temptation and self-control through menu choices: a lab experiment (Job Market Paper)
Unlike quasi-hyperbolic discounters, tempted agents with Gul and Pesendorfer (2001) preferences may pay to restrict
future choice sets even if they expect to resist temptation, so as to eliminate the costs of exerting self-control. I design
and implement an experimental method to test for the prevalence of these self-control types. In the experiment, the
potential temptation was to forfeit money to read a sensational story during a mundane task. I use a two-step
procedure to identify agents who suffer self-control costs. First, to measure demand for commitment, I elicit subjects'
preferences over a set of menus, which either did or did not allow access to the story. Second, I implement their
preferences using a random mechanism, which allows me to observe the behavior of subjects who faced the flexibility
of choice, yet preferred commitment. In this specific setting, a quarter to a third of subjects can be classified as selfcontrol types according to their menu preferences. Of those exposed to the choice, virtually all self-control types
behaved as they anticipated and resisted temptation. These results suggest that policies restricting the availability of
tempting options could substantially reduce the welfare costs of temptation even for those who never succumb to it.
Connecting commitment to self-control: a field experiment with participants in a weight loss challenge
While much has been written on commitment devices, few studies find strong evidence of a demand for commitment
and of its connections to self-control problems. I report the results from a field experiment with participants in a
weight loss challenge designed to better understand the link between commitment and self-control. First, I construct
an original dataset of menu choices to analyze commitment decisions to eat healthy and study participants’ menu
preferences in light of the Gul and Pesendorfer (2001) model of temptation and self-control. Secondly, I study
whether connections exist between menu preferences and demand for another commitment device that encourages
healthy behaviors through goal setting. In this setting, I find strong evidence of a demand for commitment: 65% of
participants choose to commit through goal setting and 46% exhibit menu preferences roughly consistent with
temptation in the Gul and Pesendorfer model. Furthermore, there is cross-domain consistency: those who commit
their food choices are also more likely to set goals and 35% of participants commit in both domains. Finally, menu
choices are correlated with standard measures of self-control. The elicitation of menu preferences therefore offers a
promising venue for measuring self-control problems.
Choice Deferral, Indecisiveness and Preference for flexibility, with Leonardo Pejsachowicz (submitted)
We introduce a model of menu choice in which a person’s decisions may only partially reveal her innate tastes. The
latter are modeled by means of a possibly incomplete (but otherwise rational) preference relation ≥, and the former by
a completion ≥* of that relation. The two are connected through an axiom formalizing an intuitive rule: “Whenever in
doubt, don’t commit; just leave options open.” Under the usual assumptions of the menu choice literature, we find that
even the smallest amount of indecisiveness is enough to force ≥*, through this deferral property, to exhibit preference
for flexibility on its entire domain. Thus we highlight a fundamental tension between non-monotonic preferences,
such as preferences for self-control, and tendency to defer choice due to indecisiveness.
Intention-Based Reciprocity and Signalling of Intentions (submitted)
Many experiments find that trust intentions are a key determinant of prosociality, but ignore the uncertainty pertaining
to informal trust agreements. If intentions matter, then trust should depend on whether intentions can be transparently
conveyed. This conjecture is formalized and tested in a noisy trust game where I vary the extent to which trust can be
credibly signalled. I find that (i) prosociality decreases when intentions become noisier; (ii) Subjects are willing to pay
to signal their trust. Therefore, not only do intentions count, but players internalize this fact. However, the effect of
intentions on individual behavior is highly heterogeneous.
Work in progress
Goal-setting for a healthier self: evidence from a weight loss challenge
Self-set goals can be a powerful motivational force when used as an instrument of self-regulation. A wide range of
studies indeed shows that higher goals typically lead to higher performance (Locke and Latham 1990). Yet, overly
ambitious goals may become demotivating once they appear out of reach. If this second effect dominates, then
information interventions designed to help individuals set more realistic goals could improve performance. I test this
hypothesis in the context of weight loss goals set by participants in a yearly weight loss challenge. Participants were
randomly assigned either to a control condition with no information, or to a treatment condition with information
about the average goal and success rate of past participants. Participants in the information condition set significantly
lower weight loss goals; furthermore, controlling for the goal level, they were significantly more likely to achieve
their target, more likely to lose weight and less likely to regain. These findings suggest that information interventions
that nudge individuals into setting more realistic goals for themselves could improve health outcomes.
“Evaluating a peer mentor mobile app for smoking cessation”, with Justin White (UCSF), Lee Westmaas
(American Cancer Society) and Lorien Abroms (George Washington University)
Scaling up interventions for smoking cessation could prevent millions of deaths from lung cancer worldwide. Existing
approaches have proven difficult to offer at a population level. The increasing use of smartphone technology presents
an exceptional chance to expand access to low-cost smoking cessation services. In this study, we propose to build a
smartphone app for smoking cessation. Two features will distinguish the app from existing products: 1) peer
mentoring and 2) a game-based design to motivate both app users and peer mentors. We will use the app as a platform
for a randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of peer mentoring for smoking cessation in a game-based
environment. We will contribute to the literature on peer effects by studying two treatments: one where app users will
be able to select their mentor based on a set of observable characteristics; the other where they will be exogenously
assigned a mentor. The aim of these two treatments is to understand 1) what characteristics matter in the peer
selection process; 2) whether similarity affects user engagement and likelihood to quit; and 3) for a given level of
similarity, whether users who selected their own mentor are more engaged and successful than those who were
exogenously assigned one.