By Duncan Webb, Assistant Professor of Economics at the Nova School of Economics and Business, Lisbon, Portugal

Winner of a special mention in the AFSE 2025 Economics Thesis Prize, Duncan Webb presents in this post the results of the first chapter of his thesisEssays in Development Economics", written under the supervision of Karen Macours and Suanna Oh, and defended at the University of Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne. It asks whether discrimination against transgender people in India can be reduced by different types of communication, between peers or via authorities. The author conducts a field experiment in an urban area, comparing a control group, a discussion between neighbors and information on legal rights. He shows that horizontal communication significantly reduces discrimination, erasing discriminatory behavior on average and producing an effect 1.7 times greater than top-down communication, thanks to the reciprocal influence exerted during discussions.

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