Dr Cansin Arslan

An economist by training, Dr Cansın Arslan is a research fellow at The Inclusion Initiative (TII) and visiting senior research fellow in the Social Policy Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Prior to joining the LSE, she was a senior research fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Exeter, research fellow at the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Cansın’s research focuses on inclusion at work. She conducts field experiments to test interventions that promote more inclusive decision-making in hiring, promotions, and performance evaluations. Often working in collaboration with large organisations, her research aims to identify effective and scalable practices that foster more inclusive workplaces. Using quasi-experimental methods, she also studies the drivers of gender pay gaps, with particular attention to gender homophily between managers and employees. At TII, she studies inclusion across socio-economic backgrounds, with a particular focus on hiring practices in small and medium-sized enterprises and how recruitment processes shape opportunities for individuals from different socio-economic backgrounds.

Cansın’s doctoral research falls within development microeconomics and examines the effects of information asymmetries in agricultural value chains and within households in developing countries. Prior to her doctoral work, she was a field research associate at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and worked for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

She has also served as an external consultant for several organisations, including the OECD, the International Coffee Organization (ICO), the Center for Economic Development (C4ED), and MoreThanNow.

Having conducted field experiments both within multinational firms and in developing countries, Cansın has extensive experience managing field research projects, leading teams, and collaborating with researchers and practitioners across a wide range of institutions worldwide.

Selected Publications

A Research-Backed Training Method That Improves Hiring Outcomes (with Siri Chilazi, Katryn Wright, Priya Gill, Edward Chang, Oliver Hauser and Iris Bohnet) Harvard Business Review (2025)
https://hbr.org/2025/10/a-research-backed-training-method-that-improves-hiring-outcomes

Behaviorally designed training leads to more diverse hiring (with Edward Chang, Siri Chilazi, Iris Bohnet, and Oliver Hauser) Science (2025) https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads5258

Hidden income and its impact on expenditure patterns in Uganda (with Daniel Gregg and Randy Stringer) World Development (2024) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X24002067

Incorporating DEI into Decision-Making (with Edward Chang, Siri Chilazi, James Elfer, Erika Kirgios, and Oliver Hauser) Harvard Business Review (2023) https://hbr.org/2023/09/incorporating-dei-into-decision-making

Paying more to make less: value degrading in the coffee value chain (with Daniel Gregg and Meike Wollni) American Journal of Agricultural Economics (2023) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajae.12389

Who communicates the information matters for technology adoption (with Meike Wollni, Judith Oduol, and Karl Hughes) World Development (2022) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305750X22002054?via%3Dihub

Supply Chain Relationships: Experiments with Coffee Growers and Traders in Uganda (with Alexandra Peralta and Robert Shupp) Oxford Development Studies (2022) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13600818.2021.2007232

The Value of Coffee: Sustainability, Inclusiveness, and Resilience of the Coffee Global Value Chain (with Christoph Saenger). Coffee Development Report. International Coffee Organization (2021) https://www.icocoffee.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/CDR2020.pdf

A new profile of migrants in the aftermath of the recent economic crisis (with Dumont, Kone, Ozden, Parsons, and Xenogiani). OECD Publishing (2015) https://www.oecd.org/els/mig/WP160.pdf

Selected Work in Progress

The mixed effects of framings on performance evaluations and aspirations (with Oliver Hauser)

Does a Gender Match Between Supervisor and Employee Contribute to the Gender Pay Gap? (with Oliver Hauser)

A Field Experiment Testing Whether Accountability Reduces Racial Gaps in Performance Evaluations (with Edward Chang and Erika Kirgios)

The Interplay between Gender Homophily, Parental Leave, and Pay (with Alessandra Casarico, Oliver Hauser, Salvatore Lattanzio, and Almudena Sevilla)

Hidden consumption and household norm disagreements (with Daniel Hill, Daniel Gregg, and Randy Stringer)

Qualifications

• Doctorate in Economics (Dr.Rer.Pol) (University of Goettingen, Germany)
• MicroMasters in Data, Economics, and Development Policy (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MITx, USA)
• Master’s in Quantitative Economics (Paris School of Economics, France)
• Bachelor’s in Economics (Yeditepe University, Turkey)