Dr. Martina Zanella

• Martina Zanella, Essays in Applied Microeconomics, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2022Thesis, 2022, URL
• Martina Zanella,Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera, Virginia Minni, Automation, Unemployment and Re-envisioning the Nature of Work, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2025Report, 2025

• Jay Euijung Lee and Martina Zanella, Learning about Women's Competence: the Dynamic Response of Political Parties to Gender Quotas in South Korea, 2024Working Paper, URL
• Jay Euijung Lee, Minhyuk Nam, and Martina Zanella, Group Composition and Group Decision-Making: Evidence from Municipal Council Meetings in South Korea, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2022Working Paper
• Martina Zanella, LSE Students and Staff, Personal Data, 2022Dataset, URL
• Martina Zanella, LSE Undergraduate Students Online Survey, Personal Dataset, 2022Dataset
• Martina Zanella, Stereotypical Selection, 2024Working Paper, URL
• Jay Euijung Lee and Martina Zanella, Republic of Korea Municipal Elections Dataset, Personal Dataset, 2021Dataset
• Jay Euijung Lee, Minhyuk Nam, and Martina Zanella, Republic of Korea Municipal Councils Decision-Making and Functioning, Data not available yet, 2023Dataset
• Martina Zanella and Margaret Samahita, Confident, but undervalued: Evidence from The Irish Economics Association Annual Conference, 2025Working Paper

I am an applied micro-economist with a cutting-edge, interdisciplinary, and policy-relevant research program. My research explores the causes and consequences of inequality in education, the labour market, and political bodies, drawing insights from psychology and sociology to provide evidence-based suggestions for policy. My ongoing research spans collaborations with private and public institutions, and my work exploits different methodologies. Some of my projects constitute observational studies, where I exploit quasi-experimental methods and natural experiments to get rigorous identification of causal effects while studying individuals in real-world settings. However, I also firmly believe in the value of qualitative methods, such as in-depth surveys, focus groups, and interviews, to shed light on underlying mechanisms or inform the design of experiments. Moreover, I also have experience in designing field experiments. Lastly, in some of my projects, I make use of text, topic and sentiment analysis, web scraping, and supervised/unsupervised learning techniques to collect and analyze data. Machine learning can be an invaluable tool in support of policy-making.

• Title

  Working together: Gender segregation across firms
  Summary

  Despite the mounting support for workplace diversity and the more developed understanding of the benefits for both equality and productivity, most economies exhibit stark gender segregation across industries, occupations, and firms. Whilst segregation along industry and occupational lines has garnered much attention, gender segregation across firms within industries remains poorly understood. Studies that have looked at this phenomenon have shown that gender segregation across firms accounts for a substantial share of gender gaps in wages and workplace satisfaction. The literature has shown that peers and the characteristics of the environment affect behaviours, however, it remains unclear how much of this relationship can be attributed to different types of people self-selecting into firms with a higher share of same-gender peers. If workplace gender composition is internalized in occupational choices, different gender representation might bring along a different workforce composition, with implications for workplace dynamics and employees" outcomes. To do so, we leverage a matched employer-employee dataset representative of the universe of firms in Switzerland between 1994 and 2021 and the cross-sectional heterogeneity in the density of firms within by sector/occupation across locations to identify self-selection.
• Title

  Automation, Unemployment and Re-envisioning the Nature of Work
  Summary

  As automation and technological change gather pace within the workplace, so too do skill obsolescence and unemployment. A proactive approach to reskill and retrain workers, particularly from the private sector, is crucial for avoiding sharp increases in unemployment and inequality as the magnitude of the estimated labour market changes is such that public sector policies alone will not adequately mitigate the risks (Card et al. 2018, Greenberg et al. 2003). In this direction, we propose an intervention, embedded within a multinational consumer goods company, that fosters a "purposeful change" by reorienting blue-collar workers who could potentially be affected by restructuring towards a growth mindset and an active approach to change. The intervention entails a combination of reflective workshops and experiential learning through community volunteering. This project will be able to inform policy on a sustainable and responsible automation process that meets the needs not only of the organization and the people directly impacted but also of the local community.
  Funding Agency

  Nuffield Foundation
  Date From

  09/2021
  Date To

  09/2023
• Title

  Group Composition and Group Decision-Making: Evidence from Municipal Council Meetings in South Korea
  Summary

  Does having a seat at the table translate into influence in the decision-making process? In this paper, we study how group interactions change when quotas introduce females into South Korean municipal councils, shocking a status quo where women were nearly completely absent. Our key contribution is that we can study how group composition affects dynamics in a setting outside the lab with real consequences, by analyzing rich transcripts of data spanning 250,000 meetings, and by tracking the behavior of a councilor over 4 years of their term within the same group of councilors. Preliminary findings show that women introduced by quotas start out their term much less vocal than men, even when compared to rookie men equally lacking councilor experience. However, the gap between rookie men and rookie women nearly fully closes by the end of the term, suggesting that it is not differences in inherent talent that cause women to be less vocal and that rookie women gradually gain influence as councilors work together during the years. N.B. This paper constitutes the first step of a more ambitious initiative: to dissect the mechanisms behind how greater female representation in politics changes policy outcomes, focusing our field of vision on the decision-making process.
  Funding Agency

  STICERD
  Date From

  2023

Social sciences, Economics and Business Administration, Psychology and cognitive sciences,

• Arts and Social Sciences Benefactions Fund Feb 2023
• LSE SU Teaching Award for Sharing Subject Knowledge (Nominated by students) 2020
• Crivelli Europe Scholarship, UniCredit & Universities Foundation 2014-2016
• ISWE Prize - IEA Conference 2023 May 2023
• Full Bocconi Merit Award, Bocconi University 2011-2013
• Nuffield Foundation Grant (joint with Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera, Virginia Minni) 2021-2024
• Trinity Excellence in Teaching Award (Nomination), TCD 2023
• LSE Full Departmental Scholarship 2017-2019
• STICERD PhD Research Grant (joint with Jay Euijung Lee) 2017-2023
• LSE Teaching Bonus , Department of Economics, LSE 2019
• LSE Class Teacher Award , School o f Public P olicy , LSE (Highly Commended) 2022, 2021
• Excellence in Education Award, School of Public Policy, LSE 2022, 2021, 2020

• Royal Economic Society current
• European Economic Association current
• TIME (Trinity Impact Evaluation Unit) current
• TRiSS (Trinity Research in Social Sciences) current

• Internal examiner for PhD viva 08/12/2023
• Referee services for Management Science, Journal of Human Resources, AEJ: Applied Economics, and The Economic Journal, The Economic and Social Review, the Irish Economic Association Conference