Clara Sievert
Assistant Professor
CERGE-EI
Bio
Hello and welcome!
I’m an economist, researcher, and educator. My research lies in the fields of political economy, development economics, and health. I primarily use original survey data collection and field experiments.
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
In many societies around the world, people attribute illness to supernatural forces, including deities, spirits, and malevolent agents. Using observational data from sub-Saharan Africa and an original large-scale survey in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), I document the near-universality of supernatural beliefs about illness – 94% of respondents hold at least one such belief in the DRC – and their relevance for health behavior: They are linked to lower use of and beliefs in the effectiveness of modern medicine, and higher stigma toward those with illness. Then, I conduct a field experiment in the DRC to test whether these beliefs can change. I randomize showing an informational video about the biomedical cause and treatment of epilepsy, a prevalent disease commonly associated with supernatural forces. The intervention shifts respondents’ beliefs away from supernatural causes and toward modern medicine’s effectiveness, not only for epilepsy but also for other conditions. Moreover, the intervention reduces stigma toward those with the disease and increases take-up of free hospital consultations for epilepsy by 50%.
Publications
with Elisa Macchi, Valentin Bolotnyy, and Paul Barreira
American Journal of Health Economics, 2025
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.
with Alexander Popov, and Luc Laeven
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2024
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
with Marina Ngoma, Nathan Nunn, and
Jonathan L. Weigel
Data collection finished
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.
with Marina Ngoma, Nathan Nunn,
Jonathan L. Weigel, and Xavier Jaravel
Data collection finished
How do markets shape human wellbeing, moral values, and psychological traits? While economists often treat markets as neutral spaces where individuals pursue fixed preferences, a long tradition in the social sciences—from Montesquieu and Smith to Marx and Durkheim—argues that markets can reshape those preferences themselves. While access to markets may raise incomes, it may also alter how people value themselves and relate to others. We provide causal evidence using a randomized program in the Democratic Republic of Congo that offered rural villagers weekly motorbike transport to the central market in Kananga, enabling sustained urban market access. A second treatment arm offered equivalent transport to large urban churches, allowing us to isolate the effects of market exposure from urban exposure more broadly; a third group received no intervention. On average nine months after the program ended, market participants earned 16% more than controls (+0.20 SD), driven by shifts into higher-margin goods, urban trading ties, and more frequent commerce. Yet despite these gains, they reported lower subjective wellbeing, higher depressive symptoms, and increased material aspirations. These declines were concentrated in more unequal villages and among individuals who fell in local income rank, consistent with a reference-dependent utility channel. Market access also reduced the salience of religion and increased emphasis on secular values such as income, thrift, and personal responsibility. Participants became more individualistic and endorsed stronger internal locus of control, but did not become more trusting, prosocial, or civically engaged. Markets changed what people value—without making them feel better off.
How do markets shape wellbeing, moral values, and psychological traits? While economics often treats markets as neutral spaces where individuals pursue fixed preferences, a long tradition in the social sciences—from Montesquieu and Smith to Marx and Durkheim—argues that markets can reshape those preferences themselves. Some claim markets encourage civility and trust; others warn they promote materialism and discontent. This study provides causal evidence on how access to markets affects both livelihoods and values by randomly expanding urban market access for rural households in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We ask whether sustained exposure to markets not only raises income but also changes what people value, how they view success, and how they interpret their place in the world.
We study a randomized controlled trial involving 4,200 individuals across 300 villages near Kananga, the fourth-largest city in the DRC. Villages were randomly assigned to one of three arms: (i) a “market access” treatment, offering free weekly motorcycle transport to the city’s main market for six months; (ii) a “church access” treatment, offering equivalent transport to large urban churches; or (iii) a pure control group. This design allows us to isolate the effects of market exposure from urban exposure more broadly, and to test whether any changes in values or wellbeing are specific to commercial interaction.
Market access led to substantial and persistent economic gains. Treated participants earned 16% more than controls nine months after the program ended (p<0.01). Gains were driven by shifts into high-markup products such as palm oil and coffee, greater likelihood of forming urban trading relationships (+3.2 percentage points), and more frequent participation in commerce. Men in a sub treatment arm encouraging wholesale trading, saw the largest income effects. However, there were no average effects on agricultural labor time, asset ownership, or employment overall, though some men took up salaried urban work (e.g., as drivers).
Despite these economic improvements, market access reduced subjective wellbeing on average. Participants reported higher levels of depression symptoms (+0.06 SDs), especially feelings of worthlessness and lack of purpose. They also believed they needed more money to be happy (an increase of 0.15 SDs), and, even after accounting for their income gains, reported feeling 0.14 SDs further from that target (p<0.01). These declines were not explained by income volatility or disappointment in post-program earnings. Instead, they appear to be driven by rising inequality within villages: the program increased income variance by 0.71 SDs, and individuals in more unequal villages or with falling relative income ranks experienced sharper declines in wellbeing. Discontent also spilled over to untreated friends of market participants, further underscoring the role of local reference points.
Access to markets also shifted participants’ values in systematic ways. Relative to controls, market participants placed less emphasis on religion across multiple domains: they assigned fewer tokens to religion as part of a “good life” (−0.36 SDs), “good person” (−0.44 SDs), and child-rearing priorities (−0.19 SDs), and reported lower participation in private prayer and church activities. In place of religious values, they placed more importance on income, education, thrift, and diligence—traits often associated with individual responsibility and productivity. These shifts are consistent with the rise of a more secular, self-directed orientation: market participants were 0.17 SDs more likely to endorse internal locus of control (p<0.01), and more likely to attribute success in marriage and work to their own choices rather than divine will.
We find no average effects on prosocial behavior. Giving in dictator games and universal morality measures show no treatment effect. However, market participants gave less to members of their religious network, suggesting a narrowing of moral concern rather than a collapse of generosity. In other domains, participants became more “bourgeois” but not more trusting or community-oriented. There was no evidence of increased civic participation or generalized trust.
These results have three main implications. First, markets are not value-neutral. Access to them affects not only income and economic behavior but also subjective wellbeing and core moral commitments. Second, the gains from markets come with social costs: they raise aspirations and inequality, and in doing so can lower overall wellbeing. Third, our results provide stronger support for the homo economicus criqieu than the doux commerce thesis. Rather than fostering civility and prosociality, market exposure in this setting secularized values and sharpened individualism—without increasing trust, cooperation, or subjective welfare.
Together, these findings suggest that welfare analysis should consider the endogenous nature of preferences. If market institutions shape values as well as outcomes, then economists and policymakers must rethink what it means to assess the gains from trade.
with Marina Ngoma, Nathan Nunn, Jonathan L. Weigel, and Gabriel Granato
Data collection finished
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
Teaching
- Data Science: Foundations of Statistics (M.Sc., Lecturer, CERGE-EI, 2024)
- Economic Development (Ph.D., Lecturer, CERGE-EI, 2025)
- Comparative Historical Economic Development (Ph.D., Teaching Fellow for Nathan Nunn, Harvard, 2021)
- Economics and Morality (B.Sc., Teaching Fellow for Ben Enke, Harvard, 2021)
- Religion and Political Economy (B.Sc., Teaching Fellow for Robert Barro, Harvard, 2020)
- A Libertarian Perspective on Economic, Social, and Foreign Policy (B.Sc., Teaching Fellow for Jeff Miron, Harvard, 2020)
Contact
Clara Sievert
CERGE-EI
Politických vězňů 7
110 00 Prague 1
Office 312
clara.sievert@cerge-ei.cz