Chris Roth

Professor, LMU Munich (from fall 2026)

Co-Editor, Journal of the European Economic Association

Psychology and Economics · Political Economy · Macro-expectations · Artificial Intelligence

I study how people form beliefs about the economy, politics, and society, combining insights from psychology and economics. My work uses large-scale surveys, experiments, and tools from artificial intelligence to understand how narratives, memory, and the media shape expectations and behavior. Recent projects focus on the economics of social media and on using AI to study economic decision-making.

CV Google Scholar ERC Starting Grant: VIRAL
Portrait of Chris Roth

Working Papers

Attention to the Macroeconomy (with Sebastian Link, Andreas Peichl, Oliver Pfäuti and Johannes Wohlfart) Conditionally accepted, Quarterly Journal of Economics

News Customization with AI (with Felix Chopra, Ingar Haaland, Fabian Roeben and Vanessa Sticher) [Instructions] Revise and resubmit, Review of Economic Studies

Evaluating Behavioral Interventions at Scale with AI (with Felix Chopra, Ingar Haaland and Nicolas Roever) Revise and resubmit, Economic Journal

Explanations (with Thomas Graeber and Constantin Schesch) [Online Appendix]

Learning from False Stories (with Robin Musolff and Florian Zimmermann)

Macro Theory with Measured Expectations (with Ralph Luetticke, Mirko Wiederholt and Johannes Wohlfart) [Online Appendix]

Tipping Points and Australia's Social Media Ban (with Leo Bursztyn, Angela Duckworth, Rafael Jiménez-Durán, Aaron Leonard, Filip Milojević and Cass Sunstein)

Non-User Externalities (with Leo Bursztyn, Jan Fasnacht, Benjamin Handel, Rafael Jiménez-Durán, Aaron Leonard, Filip Milojević and Cass Sunstein)

Non-User Utility and Market Power: The Case of Smartphones (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Rafael Jiménez-Durán, Aaron Leonard and Filip Milojević)

Coarse Categories in a Complex World (with Thomas Graeber and Marco Sammon)

News Consumption in the Digital Age (with Francesco Capozza, Ingar Haaland and Johannes Wohlfart) In preparation for the Annual Review of Economics

Main Publications in Economics

The Transmission of Reliable and Unreliable Information (with Thomas Graeber and Shakked Noy) Accepted, Quarterly Journal of Economics

Measuring Markets for Network Goods (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Matthew Gentzkow, Rafael Jiménez-Durán, Aaron Leonard and Filip Milojević) Accepted, Review of Economic Studies

The Social Desirability Atlas (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Ingar Haaland and Nicolas Roever) Accepted, Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics

Narratives about the Macroeconomy (with Peter Andre, Ingar Haaland, Mirko Wiederholt and Johannes Wohlfart) [Instructions] Review of Economic Studies, 2026

Depression Stigma (with Peter Schwardmann and Egon Tripodi) Journal of Public Economics, 2026, Vol. 260, 105713

Understanding Economic Behavior Using Open-ended Survey Data (with Ingar Haaland, Stefanie Stantcheva and Johannes Wohlfart) Journal of Economic Literature, 2025, 63 (4), 1244-1280

When Product Markets Become Collective Traps: The Case of Social Media (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Benjamin Handel and Rafael Jiménez-Durán) American Economic Review, 2025, 115 (12), 4105-4136

Home Price Expectations and Spending: Evidence From a Field Experiment (with Felix Chopra and Johannes Wohlfart) American Economic Review, 2025, 115 (7), 2267–2305

Voice and Political Engagement: Evidence From a Field Experiment (with Anselm Hager, Lukas Hensel and Andreas Stegmann) Review of Economics and Statistics, 2025, 107 (4), 1149–1158

Misperceived Effectiveness and the Demand for Psychotherapy (with Peter Schwardmann and Egon Tripodi) Journal of Public Economics, 2024, Vol. 240, 105254

Stories, Statistics, and Memory (with Thomas Graeber and Florian Zimmermann) [Instructions] Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2024, Vol. 139 (4), 2181–2225

The Demand for News: Accuracy Concerns versus Belief Confirmation Motives (with Felix Chopra and Ingar Haaland) [Slides] [Instructions] The Economic Journal, 2024, Vol. 134 (661), 1806-1834

Worker Beliefs about Outside Options (with Simon Jäger, Nina Roussille and Benjamin Schoefer) Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2024, Vol. 139 (3), 1505–1556

Uncertainty and Information Acquisition: Evidence from Firms and Households (with Heiner Mikosch, Samad Sarferaz and Johannes Wohlfart) American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2024, Vol. 16 (2), 375-405

The Null Result Penalty (with Felix Chopra, Ingar Haaland and Andreas Stegmann) [Slides] The Economic Journal, 2024, Vol. 134 (657), 193-219

Interregional Contact and the Formation of a Shared Identity (with Manuel Bagues) American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2023, 15 (3), 322-50

Justifying Dissent (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Georgy Egorov, Ingar Haaland and Aakaash Rao) Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2023, 138 (3), 1403-1453

Designing Information Provision Experiments (with Ingar Haaland and Johannes Wohlfart) Journal of Economic Literature, 2023, 61 (1), 3–40

Opinions as Facts (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Aakaash Rao and David Yanagizawa-Drott) Review of Economic Studies, 2023, 90 (4), 1832–1864

Political Activists as Free-Riders: Evidence From a Natural Field Experiment (with Anselm Hager, Lukas Hensel and Johannes Hermle) The Economic Journal, 2023, Vol. 133 (653), 2068-2084

Information Frictions Among Firms and Households (with Sebastian Link, Andreas Peichl and Johannes Wohlfart) Journal of Monetary Economics, 2023, 135, 99-115

Beliefs about Racial Discrimination and Support for Pro-Black Policies (with Ingar Haaland) Review of Economics and Statistics, 2023, 105 (1), 40–53

Subjective Models of the Macroeconomy: Evidence From Experts and Representative Samples (with Peter Andre, Carlo Pizzinelli and Johannes Wohlfart) Review of Economic Studies, 2022, Vol. 89 (6), 2958–2991

Risk Exposure and Acquisition of Macroeconomic Information (with Sonja Settele and Johannes Wohlfart) American Economic Review: Insights, 2022, 4 (1), 34–53

Do People Demand Fact-Checked News? Evidence From U.S. Democrats (with Felix Chopra and Ingar Haaland) Journal of Public Economics, 2022, Vol. 205, 104549

Beliefs about Public Debt and the Demand for Government Spending (with Sonja Settele and Johannes Wohlfart) Journal of Econometrics, 2022, Vol. 231 (1), 165-187

Coronavirus Perceptions and Economic Anxiety (with Thiemo Fetzer, Lukas Hensel and Johannes Hermle) Review of Economics and Statistics, 2021, 103 (5), 968–978

Labor Market Concerns and Support for Immigration (with Ingar Haaland) [Instructions] Journal of Public Economics, 2020, Vol. 191, 104256

How Do Expectations About the Macroeconomy Affect Personal Expectations and Behavior? (with Johannes Wohlfart) Review of Economics and Statistics, 2020, 102 (4)

Income Shocks and Suicides: Causal Evidence From Indonesia (with Cornelius Christian and Lukas Hensel) Review of Economics and Statistics, 2019, 101 (5), 905–920

Experienced Inequality and Preferences for Redistribution (with Johannes Wohlfart) Journal of Public Economics, 2018, Vol. 167, 251-262

Measuring and Bounding Experimenter Demand (with Jon de Quidt and Johannes Haushofer) American Economic Review, 2018, Vol. 108 (11), 3266-3302

Publications Outside Economics

Social Dynamics of AI Adoption in Parents' Educational Decisions (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Alex Imas, Rafael Jiménez-Durán and Aaron Leonard) Accepted, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Political Activists are Not Driven by Instrumental Motives: Evidence from Two Natural Field Experiments (with Anselm Hager, Lukas Hensel and Johannes Hermle) Accepted, British Journal of Political Science

Group Size and Protest Mobilization across Movements and Countermovements (with Anselm Hager, Lukas Hensel and Johannes Hermle) American Political Science Review, 2022, Vol. 116 (3), 1051-1066

Does Party Competition Affect Political Activism? (with Anselm Hager, Lukas Hensel and Johannes Hermle) The Journal of Politics, 2021, 83 (4), 1681-1694

Does Information Change Attitudes Towards Immigrants? (with Alexis Grigorieff and Diego Ubfal) Demography, 2020, 57, 1117-1143

Global Behaviors, Perceptions, and the Emergence of Social Norms at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic (with Lukas Hensel, Thiemo Fetzer, Marc Witte, Jon Jachimowicz, Johannes Haushofer, Andriy Ivchenko, Stefano Caria, Elena Reutskaja, Stefano Fiorin, Margarita Gómez, Gordon Kraft-Todd, Friedrich Götz and Erez Yoeli) Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2022, 193, 473-496

Other Publications

Information Experiments (with Ingar Haaland, Julian König and Johannes Wohlfart) Prepared for the Encyclopedia of Experimental Social Science

Scapegoating During Crises (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Georgy Egorov, Ingar Haaland and Aakaash Rao) AEA Papers & Proceedings, 2022, Vol. 112, 151-55

Makroökonomische Erwartungen und ihre Rolle in wirtschaftlichen Entscheidungen von Haushalten (with Johannes Wohlfart) Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, 20 (2), 159-166

Policy Articles

Product Market Traps in Social Media: Evidence and Policy Implications (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Benjamin Handel and Rafael Jiménez-Durán) Brookings Hamilton Project Discussion Paper, 2026

Lost in Transmission (with Thomas Graeber and Shakked Noy) VoxEU Column, March 2024

Product Market Traps: The Case of Social Media (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Benjamin Handel and Rafael Jiménez-Durán) VoxEU Column, November 2023

Stories, Statistics, and Memory (with Thomas Graeber and Florian Zimmermann) VoxEU Column, February 2023

The Null Result Penalty (with Felix Chopra, Ingar Haaland and Andreas Stegmann) VoxEU Column, July 2022

Rationales and Social Cover (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Georgy Egorov, Ingar Haaland and Aakaash Rao) VoxEU Column, March 2022

Inflation Narratives (with Peter Andre, Ingar Haaland and Johannes Wohlfart) VoxEU Column, December 2021

Interregional Contact and National Identity (with Manuel Bagues) VoxEU Column, January 2021

Excuses for Prejudice (with Leonardo Bursztyn, Ingar Haaland and Aakaash Rao) VoxEU Column, July 2020

Coronavirus Perceptions and Economic Anxiety (with Thiemo Fetzer, Lukas Hensel and Johannes Hermle) VoxEU Column, March 2020

Information Changes Attitudes Towards Immigrants (with Alexis Grigorieff and Diego Ubfal) VoxEU Column, March 2017

Resources