Assistant Professor
Margaret is an Assistant Professor at UCD School of Economics and a Research Fellow at the Geary Institute for Public Policy. She studies individual decision-making with a focus on the effects of self-image, social image, emotions and self-control. Through this work she explores gender representation in Economics.
In her recent study Are economics conferences gender-neutral? Evidence from Ireland, Margaret examined whether male- and female-authored papers are equally likely to be accepted to an economics conference. Her findings showed that while organisers' acceptance decisions do not differ across genders, there is an indication of in-group gender bias at the reviewer stage, which appears to stem from unconscious stereotyping against lesser-known female authors. It further indicated that anonymisation does not completely eliminate the observed score differences across genders.
In her study The Inelastic Demand for Affirmative Action, she explored whether demand for affirmative action policies is driven by beliefs about productivity differences across genders. Her findings suggest that affirmative action choice rather reflects a more intrinsic preference that is inelastic to monetary incentives and may be difficult to change through workplace policies.