Bio
Hello and welcome!
I’m an economist, researcher, and educator. Motivated by history, anthropology, and cognitive psychology, I use original survey data and field experiments to study questions in development economics, political economy, and health. I’m particularly interested in how culture shapes health behavior.
I am an assistant professor in Economics (tenure track) at CERGE-EI, a joint workplace of Charles University and the Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. I received my PhD from Harvard University in 2024. More in my CV.
Working Papers
Supernatural Beliefs about Illness and Modern Medicine Use: Evidence from the DR Congo
In many societies around the world, individuals attribute illness to supernatural forces such as spirits, curses, or divine punishment. Despite rich qualitative documentation, systematic empirical evidence on the prevalence, behavioral consequences, and adaptability of supernatural illness beliefs remains scarce. In a first step, I use publicly available survey data from sub-Saharan Africa and newly collected survey data from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to document that supernatural illness beliefs are widespread: 94% of respondents in the DRC attribute at least one illness to supernatural causes, with large variation across illnesses. These beliefs matter: they are associated with lower perceived efficacy of modern medicine, lower use of modern medicine, and higher stigma toward those with certain illnesses. In a second step, I conduct a field experiment in the DRC to test whether such beliefs can shift. I randomize exposure to an informational video about the biomedical causes and treatment of epilepsy, a prevalent condition most commonly attributed to supernatural causes. The intervention shifts respondents’ beliefs away from supernatural explanations and toward modern medicine’s effectiveness, not only for epilepsy but also for other illnesses. It increases take-up of free hospital consultations for epilepsy by 50% and reduces stigma toward those with the condition. Taken together, I give causal evidence that supernatural illness beliefs form an internally coherent, yet adaptable explanatory framework that links perceived cause to treatment and social response, and connects beliefs across illnesses.
How Market Access Shapes Wellbeing and Values: Experimental Evidence from the D.R. Congo
Classical liberals argue that expanding market access fosters prosociality, hard work, and thrift. In contrast, more critical perspectives contend that markets create a more self-interested, secular, and discontented homo economicus. We test these ideas in a field experiment with 4,200 individuals across 300 Congolese villages, offering free motorcycle transportation to the province’s largest urban market one day per week for six months. Market access increased household income by 15% nine months after the intervention by facilitating lasting connections to urban traders and stimulating cash-crop trade. However, it reduced subjective wellbeing and made participants feel further from their desired income, likely by generating within-village inequality and shifting reference points among market “losers.” Market access also had a secularizing effect: participants placed less moral importance on religious faith and viewed it as a weaker determinant of success. Instead, they attributed success more to personal agency, hard work, productivity, education, income, and saving. An urban placebo treatment arm isolates these effects from exposure to the city or urban social networks more broadly.
Publications
Graduate Student and Faculty Mental Health: Evidence from European Economics Departments
We study the mental health of graduate students and faculty at 14 Economics departments in Europe. Using clinically validated surveys sent out in the fall of 2021, we find that 34.7% of graduate students experience moderate to severe symptoms of depression or anxiety and 17.3% report suicidal or self-harm ideation in a two-week period. 19.2% of students with significant symptoms are in treatment. 15.8% of faculty members experience moderate to severe depression or anxiety symptoms, with prevalence higher among non-tenure track (42.9%) and tenure track (31.4%) faculty than tenured (9.6%) faculty. We estimate that the COVID-19 pandemic accounts for about 74% of the higher prevalence of depression symptoms and 30% of the higher prevalence of anxiety symptoms in our European sample relative to a 2017 U.S. sample of economics graduate students. We also document issues in the work environment, including a high incidence of sexual harassment, and make recommendations for improvement.
Is Religion an Inferior Good? Evidence from Fluctuations in Housing Wealth
The question of whether religious activities decline with economic development has been actively debated in sociology and economics for centuries. We address this question exploiting house price fluctuations in the U.S. in the early 2000s. We show that an increase in local house prices is associated with a decline in time spent on religious activities for homeowners relative to renters. This effect is not present for volunteering and civic activities. The main result is driven by a wealth effect, whereby activities that have an inferior-good component decline with housing wealth, and by a substitution effect whereby the attractiveness of activities linked to the residential asset increases during housing booms.
Work in Progress
The Impact of Access to Cities on Development: Experimental Evidence from the D.R. Congo
Throughout the world, cities are drivers of economic growth. They are hubs of innovation, entrepreneurship, and social change. Yet, the mechanisms through which the economic benefits of cities occur remain poorly understood because many social and economic forces change in tandem with urbanization. We study the randomized rollout of a program promoting urban access in rural villages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Implemented by a local NGO, this `City Access Program’ (CAP) provides regular weekly transportation by motorbike taxi to the city of Kananga to individuals living in rural villages surrounding the city. Our project seeks to provide causal evidence on the impacts of access to cities on economic behavior and wellbeing, gender norms, moral values such as preference for the in-group over the out-group, and psychological traits such as grit, self-control, and self-efficacy.
The Religious Landscape of Kananga, D.R. Congo
Across sub-Saharan Africa, churches play pivotal roles as social, economic, and political centers in vibrant free religious markets, in which indigenous beliefs and Christian beliefs are practiced in syncretism. Churches offer educational, insurance, and welfare services, and serve as platforms for political discourse, profoundly influencing individuals’ values and aspirations. This project aims to enhance our understanding of the role of churches for economic development by providing descriptive evidence on the religious landscape in Kananga in the Democratic Republic of Congo. For this end, we conducted a comprehensive church census, representative surveys of pastors and congregants, and textual analyses of church service recordings
Illness and Inference: Evidence on Health Decision-Making in South Africa
Maternal Networks and Child Health Investments: Evidence from Indonesia
From Secular to Sacred: Russian Orthodox Identity and Imperial Ambitions in 21st Century Russia
Capacity Building through Economics Education in Post-Communist Countries: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Albania and Uzbekistan
Teaching
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Data Science: Foundations of Statistics (M.Sc., Lecturer, CERGE-EI, 2024, 2025)
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Economic Development (Ph.D., Lecturer, CERGE-EI, 2025)
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Comparative Historical Economic Development (Ph.D., Teaching Fellow for Nathan Nunn, Harvard, 2021)
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Economics and Morality (B.Sc., Teaching Fellow for Ben Enke, Harvard, 2021)
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Religion and Political Economy (B.Sc., Teaching Fellow for Robert Barro, Harvard, 2020)
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A Libertarian Perspective on Economic, Social, and Foreign Policy (B.Sc., Teaching Fellow for Jeff Miron, Harvard, 2020)
Clara Sievert
CERGE-EI
Politických vězňů 7
110 00 Prague 1
Office 312
clara.sievert@cerge-ei.cz
