holly.dykstra Faculty websiteCV
Dr. Holly Dykstra is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Konstanz. She is a behavioral economist who studies how individuals make decisions that are relevant to policy. She works mainly in the domains of household finance and benefits take-up, with a special focus on intertemporal decisions.
She is an affiliate of the Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut and Harvard University's STAR Lab. In her research, she runs online experiments as well as field experiments in cooperation with partner organizations. She has conducted research with the Behavioral Insights Team, the Mayors Innovation Project, a number of private companies, as well as city, state, and national government agencies in the U.S. and Europe.
She holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University and an A.B. in Economics from Columbia University. Prior to graduate school, she worked at the U.S. Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C.
ABSTRACT: Behavioral interventions often focus on reducing friction to encourage behavior change. In contrast, we provide evidence that adding friction can promote long-term behavior change when behaviors involve repeated costly efforts over longer time horizons. In collaboration with the Oregon Department of Transportation, we conducted a field experiment (N = 27,227) to test whether adding friction during an initial sign-up process for a new carpooling platform increases usage. Our results support this possibility: while a more effortful sign-up process led to a 25% decrease in sign-ups to the carpool platform, overall intensity of usage increased. Importantly, these results were only partly explained by selection effects: using an intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis, participants who were randomly assigned to the more effortful sign-up process took 1.6 times more carpool trips per day on average during a four-month period as compared to those in the less effortful sign-up process. Of the 9,417 observed trips, the more effortful sign-up group took almost 800 more trips. These effects persisted at eight months, where the ITT estimate was a 33% increase in trips per day. These results suggest that adding friction may be an overlooked strategy that could help to promote behavior change.
ABSTRACT: Agents insist on agency for many reasons, including a desire to obtain their preferred choice and a desire for control. Agents may also forgo agency because of costs associated with making a decision. In a large experiment, we find that even a “consideration cost” makes individuals more willing to forgo agency. When presented with a menu of investment options, decision-makers are much more willing to forgo agency (letting someone else choose) if choosing an investment option for themselves requires even a cursory consideration of the investment options. Strikingly, this consideration effect arises even among experienced decision-makers.
ABSTRACT: Individuals often behave impatiently when making financial decisions for the future. This paper proposes and tests that the timing of decisions relative to payday—which leads to temporary but recurring conditions of scarcity—influences their choice. In a large pre-registered experiment, I ask participants to adopt a commitment device that binds them to being patient. Participants who make this decision eight days before their payday, rather than one day after payday, are 34% more likely to take up commitment. This coincides with when individuals experience the most financial scarcity, and provides evidence that intertemporal decisions are affected by current psychological states.
ABSTRACT: Dramatic reductions in carbon emissions must take place immediately. A human-centric method of reducing environmental impacts is to “nudge” people away from single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs) toward more sustainable commuting options. While an abundance of research has focused on external determinants of mode choice, we know much less about the behavioral determinants. The field of behavioral science is overdue for a focus on transportation. This paper is meant to facilitate communication between researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in part by developing a behaviorally-informed framework that can be leveraged by policymakers, government, and organizations worldwide. We also describe the founding of our multidisciplinary team and outline lessons learned.
ABSTRACT: 60% of Americans eligible for unemployment benefits are not receiving them (Forsythe & Yang, 2021; BLS, 2023; Lachowska et al., 2025). Amid widespread low and differential take-up rates of social programs (Ko & Moffitt, 2022) and lack of new solutions to address this (DellaVigna & Linos, 2022; Linos et al., 2022), we design a tailored generative AI assistant to overcome the barriers workers face in applying for benefits. We assess its effectiveness in a randomized controlled trial.
ABSTRACT: This paper investigates earnings incentives in public housing. For most people living in public housing, the cost of rent is tied to one's income, and an increase in income leads to an increase in rent. This creates a disincentive towards earning more. We study a federal program that removes this connection, allowing residents to stay at their baseline level rent even if their income rises. In partnership with the Cambridge Housing Authority, we automatically enroll some residents in public housing into this program and provide them with financial coaching through the Boston-based nonprofit Compass Working Capital.