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 the expansion of market access promoted prosociality, hard work, and thrift, while according to more critical schools of thought, markets ushered in a more self-interested, secular, and unsatisfied homo economicus. We examine these ideas in a field experiment involving 4,200 individuals across 300 Congolese villages that provided free motorcycle transportation to the largest urban market in the province one day per week for six months. Market access increased household income by 16% nine months after the intervention by facilitating enduring connections to urban traders and stimulating trade in cash crops. However, it eroded subjective wellbeing on average and made participants feel further away from their desired income, likely by generating within-village inequality and altering the reference points of market “losers.” Market access also had a secularizing effect: participants viewed religious faith as a less important value and a weaker determinant of success in life. Instead, they believed more in their own agency and in the value of hard work, productivity, education, income, and saving. An urban placebo treatment arm helps attribute these effects to market access, separate from exposure to the city and urban social networks more generally.
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
Access to Urban Religious Networks and Development: Experimental Evidence from the D.R. Congo
We study the social and cultural effects of urban exposure through a large-scale randomized transportation program in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the “social network” treatment arm, rural villagers were offered weekly motorcycle transport to attend Sunday services in large urban churches of diverse denominations for six months. In sub-Saharan Africa, churches play central roles as providers of education, welfare, and insurance; as facilitators of employment and social integration; and as key institutions shaping moral values, beliefs, and marriage markets. Motivated by classic debates on the economic effects of religion—most notably Weber’s hypothesis on the Protestant work ethic—we examine how religious participation and doctrine shape economic and psychological outlooks. Using rich data on church characteristics, including sermon transcripts, pastor surveys, and congregational networks, we estimate the causal effects of exposure to urban religious environments on villagers’ economic behavior, psychological traits (grit, self-efficacy, resilience), moral reasoning, and prosociality, and exploit denominational heterogeneity to identify the mechanisms through which religious institutions shape mindsets and behavior.
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
From Plan to Market: Advancing Economics Education in Post-Communist Societies
Economics lies at the heart of communist ideology, making economic reasoning and political worldview deeply intertwined. Many post-Soviet countries still lack modern, market-oriented economics education—an essential ingredient for effective policymaking and state capacity. We evaluate the Teaching Fellows Program (TFP) by a U.S. foundation, which places Western-trained PhD economists to teach modern economics at regional universities across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Since 2007, the program has reached over 270,000 students in 23 countries. We partner with universities in Uzbekistan, Albania, and Kazakhstan to implement a randomized field experiment evaluating the program’s impact. The study measures both educational and ideological outcomes: test performance, conceptual understanding, and critical thinking, as well as political values, aspirations, gender attitudes, and support for democracy and equality. The results will provide the first experimental evidence on how economics education shapes not only skills and human capital, but also ideology and values, with plans to expand to additional settings in the future.
Religion and State Power in Wartime Russia
Illness and Inference: Evidence on Health Decision-Making in South Africa
Maternal Networks and Child Health Investments: Evidence from Indonesia
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
dr.clara.sievert@gmail.com
