Rigissa Megalokonomou

Gender Biases and Ranking Effects

During her visit to CESifo, Rigissa Megalokonomou will be working on two studies. One examines the impact of being randomly assigned to a female (vs. a male) leader in a peer group, when this leader is recognized by a prize which is salient on a daily basis. The other paper will be investigating the mechanisms behind rank effects and in particular the response of students, parents and teachers to randomly being assigned a higher or a lower rank in middle school.

Ms. Megalokonomou is an applied economist and her research combines micro-econometric techniques with the collection of unique, large datasets in understanding policy-related questions. Her expertise is in the economics of education, labor economics and immigration economics. Her research focuses on understanding how social comparisons and interactions affect students' productivity, educational choices, and labor market outcomes. She is also working on understanding the causes of gender biases and discrimination.

Rigissa Megalokonomou is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland. She is also an Affiliate of the CESifo Research Network and the IZA. She has published in the Economic Journal, Journal of Human Resources, the European Economic Review, etc. Rigissa graduated top of her BSc in Economics class at the University of Athens. She holds an MSc in Economics and Econometrics from the University of Essex and a PhD in Economics from the University of Warwick. Her research has been featured at The Conversation, The Guardian, LSE EUROPP and Epoch Times etc. She joined the editorial board of the Journal of Population Economics as an Associate Editor in 2022.