
Dr Cevat Giray Aksoy
Lecturer in Economics
Biography
I am an Associate Director, Senior Research Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist at European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London, Assistant Professor of Economics at King’s College London, Department of Political Economy, and Research Associate at IZA Institute of Labor Economics. I will be visiting Stanford University, Economics Department in Fall, 2022.
I am also a co-founder of Global Survey of Working Arrangements (G-SWA), which collects detailed information on workers’ experiences and attitudes regarding remote work arrangements.
My research has been funded by King’s College London, the British Academy, and the World Bank. I mainly work on economic inclusion, forced migration, the political economy of trust and economic implications of working from home.
My research has been covered by over 100 media outlets, including BBC, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune Magazine, Harvard Business Review, Mirror, Reuters, The Daily Mail, The Independent, The New York Times, The Telegraph, The Times, Quartz, Vox, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and World Economic Forum.
I am the recipient of the Young Researcher Award from the Association of British Turkish Academics and was selected as a Leader of Tomorrow by The St. Gallen Foundation. I also occasionally contribute to Pocket Economics podcasts and write for GALLUP Blog, LSE Business Review, and VOXEU,
In 2017, I completed my PhD in Economics at University of London, Royal Holloway College.
Click here to view Dr Aksoy's website.
Research interests
- Economics of Migration
- Labour Market Inequalities
- Political Economy
Teaching
- Causal Inference for Public Policy (Graduate Level).
The module provides an introduction to instrumental variable estimation, the regression discontinuity design, difference-in-differences estimation, as well as the synthetic control method. Teaching consists of a weekly lecture, as well as seminars, and hands-on lab sessions. In the labs students apply methods of causal inference to various causal questions in the fields of economics, political economy, public policy and political science.
All teaching material will be posted on Keats.
Publications
2022
- Working from Home Around the World, Forthcoming, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (with Jose Barrero, Nicholas Bloom, Steven Davis, Mathias Dolls and Pablo Zarate). View Slides, View NBER Working Paper, View IZA Working Paper. Featured in Becker Friedman Institute, Bloomberg, Deutsche Welle, EuroNews, Helsinki Times, Les Affaires, Los Angeles Times, MedyaScope TV, NPR, Observer, Spiegel, the National, the Sydney Morning Herald,7NEWS Australia
- The Political Scar of Epidemics, Conditionally Accepted, the Economic Journal (with Barry Eichengreen and Orkun Saka). View NBER Working Paper | Watch LSE Public Event. Featured in Anadolu Agency, BBC Turkey, Bloomberg, Daily Mail, Euro News, Financial Times, The Telegraph, VoxEU, Washington Post.
- Exposure to Transit Migration: Public Attitudes and Entrepreneurship, Journal of Development Economics (2022) (with Nicolas Ajzenman and Sergei Guriev). View IZA Working Paper. Featured in VoxEU
- Reducing Sexual-Orientation Discrimination: Experimental Evidence from Basic Information Treatments, Forthcoming, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (with Christopher Carpenter, Ralph De Haas, Mathias Dolls, and Lisa Windsteiger). View SSRN Working Paper, View CEPR Working Paper. Featured in VoxEU, VoxTalks Podcast, G7, the Conversation. View Pre-analysis Plan. View SSRN Working Paper, View CEPR Working Paper.
- Epidemic Exposure, Financial Technology, and the Digital Divide, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking (2022) (with Barry Eichengreen and Orkun Saka). View CEPR Working Paper. Featured in VoxEU.
2021
- Refugees’ and Irregular Migrants’ Self-selection into Europe, Journal of Development Economics (2021) (with Panu Poutvaara). View IZA Working Paper. Featured in Bloomberg, Business Insider, Deutsche Welle, Die Zeit, Reuters, VoxEU.
- Revenge of the Experts: Will COVID-19 Renew or Diminish Public Trust in Science?, Journal of Public Economics (2021) (with Barry Eichengreen and Orkun Saka). View NBER Working Paper. Featured in Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, New Zealand Herald, Times Higher Education, VoxEU, LSE Business Review, Phys.org, ProMarket.
- Local Governance Quality and the Environmental Cost of Forced Migration, Journal of Development Economics (2021) (with Semih Tumen). View SSRN Working Paper.
- Robots and the Gender Pay Gap: Evidence from Europe, European Economic Review (2021) (with Berkay Ozcan and Julia Philipp). View IZA Working Paper. Featured in The Independent, New Scientist, VoxEU, World Economic Forum.
2020
- Do Laws Shape Attitudes? Evidence from Same-sex Relationship Recognition Policies in Europe, European Economic Review (2020) (with Christopher S. Carpenter, Ralph De Haas, and Kevin Tran). View CEPR Working Paper. Featured in Psychology Today, VoxEU.
2019
-
Gay Glass Ceilings: Sexual Orientation and Workplace Authority in the UK, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2019) (with Christopher S. Carpenter, Jeff Frank and Matt Huffman). View IZA Working Paper. Featured in Bloomberg, New Zealand Herald, Quartz, VoxEU, Washington Post, World Economic Forum
2018
- Sexual Orientation and Earnings: New Evidence from the United Kingdom, ILR Review (2018) (with Christopher S. Carpenter and Jeff Frank). View EBRD Working Paper Version. Featured in Harvard Business Review, IZA World of Labor, LSE Business Review, Quartz, VoxEU, World Economic Forum.
Working Papers
- (Successful) Democracies Breed Their Own Support, Revise and Resubmit, Review of Economic Studies (with Daron Acemoglu, Nicolas Ajzenman, Martin Fiszbein, and Carlos Molina). View NBER Working Paper. Featured in El Tiempo, the New York Times, the Week, VoxEU.
- Globalization, Government Popularity, and the Great Skill Divide, Revise and Resubmit, Journal of Politics (with Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman). View NBER Working Paper. Featured in VoxEU, Wall Street Journal.
- Calamities, Common Interests, Shared Identity: What Shapes Altruism and Reciprocity? | Pre-analysis Plan (with Antonio Cabrales, Mathias Dolls, Ruben Durante, and Lisa Windsteiger). View CEPR Working Paper. Featured in VoxEU.
- First Time Around: Local Conditions and Multi-dimensional Integration of Refugees, Under review (with Panu Poutvaara and Felicitas Schikora). View IZA Working Paper. Featured in VoxEU
- Mobile Internet Access and the Desire to Emigrate (with Panu Poutvaara and Joop Adema). View CESifo Working Paper. Featured in Financial Times, Phys, VoxEU.
- Attitudes and Policies toward Refugees: Evidence from Low- and Middle-Income Countries (with Thomas Ginn). View World Bank Working Paper.
Refereeing
AEJ: Applied, Economic Journal, British Journal of Industrial Relations, European Economic Review, European Journal of Population, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Economic Literature, Journal of the European Economic Association, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Journal of Politics, Journal of Population Economics, Journal of Public Economics, Labour Economics, Management Science, Migration Studies, Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, PLOS One, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Public Opinion Quarterly, Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economics and Statistics, Quarterly Journal of Economics, World Development
Work in Progress
- Institutions Shape Culture: The Civic Imprint of Democracy (with Daron Acemoglu, Nicolas Ajzenman, Martin Fiszbein, and Carlos Molina)
- Attitudes towards Private and Public Debt: Does Language Matter? (with Mathias Dolls, Justyna Klejdysz, Andreas Peichl, and Lisa Windsteiger)
- Trusting Immigrants
Other Research Activities
Pre-PhD Publications
- The Effects of Unemployment on Fertility: Evidence from England* | The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy (2016) | DOI: 10.1515/bejeap-2014-0127
*This manuscript has been awarded as the winner of the “Best PhD Paper Prize” by the University of London, Royal Holloway
Policy Publications
- “International Migration”, EBRD Transition Report 2018, Chapter 3 (with J. Michelle Brock, Francesca Dalla Pozza and Panu Poutvaara). View Full Report
- “Skills, Employment and Automation”, EBRD Transition Report 2018, Chapter 2 (with Yvonne Giesing, Nadzeya Laurentsyeva and Elisa Wirsching). View Full Report
- “Life Satisfaction in the Transition Region”, EBRD “A Decade of Measuring Transition” Report, Chapter 1, pp. 10-22. View Full Report
- “Governance in the Transition Region”, EBRD “A Decade of Measuring Transition” Report, Chapter 2, pp. 26-37. View Full Report
- “Gender in the Transition Region”, EBRD “A Decade of Measuring Transition” Report, Chapter 3, pp. 40-49. View Full Report
Research

Quantitative Political Economy Research Group
The Quantitative Political Economy research group gathers economists and political scientists that are committed to bridging the two disciplines. The common ground is the study politics and policies with advanced quantitative methods and formal modeling.
News
Study finds local conditions crucial in integration of refugees
Unemployment rates and attitudes towards immigration at a local level can play a significant role in the successful integration of refugees, a new study has...

Savings on commute the top benefit of working from home, survey shows
Workers around the world would like to spend more time working from home than they are currently able, according to a new study.

Time saved by working from home yields 'large benefits' for workers
The average daily commute time savings when working from home is 73 minutes in the UK, according to a new study.

Better mobile internet access 'increases desire to emigrate'
Access to mobile internet has a “sizeable impact” on people’s desire and plans to emigrate, a new study has found.

A quarter of employees would rather quit than be forced back to the office
A quarter of employees who currently work from home part of the week say they would quit their job rather than return to the office full-time, according to a...

Organisers of annual migration workshop issue call for papers
A call for papers has been issued ahead of the annual Economics and Politics of Migration workshop.

Trade shocks can have 'significant impact' on government approval ratings
Trade shocks can have a significant impact on the approval ratings of governments, a new study has shown, but the reaction can vary depending on the skill...

Study finds stressing the cost of discrimination can shift attitudes
Efforts to improve rights for lesbian, gay and bisexual people in socially conservative countries may be more effective if they appeal to the economic cost of...

Working from home: What does the future hold for the home office?
As millions of people worldwide continue to log-in from the comfort of their couch, a new project will ask whether ‘working from home’ is here to stay and...

Decline in trust of scientists driven by those with 'little previous training' in the subject
Distrust in scientists and a reluctance to follow health-related advice is more prevalent among people with little scientific education, a new study has found.

Events

Workshop on the Economics and Politics of Migration 2023
Organised by EBRD, King’s College London, and Kadir Has University
Please note: this event has passed.

2nd EBRD and King’s College London Workshop on the Economics and Politics of Migration
The Department of Political Economy is jointly organising a second major workshop on migration.
Please note: this event has passed.

Workshop on the Economics and Politics of Migration
An international team of scholars and experts will come together next month for a workshop taking an in-depth look at migration.
Please note: this event has passed.
Research

Quantitative Political Economy Research Group
The Quantitative Political Economy research group gathers economists and political scientists that are committed to bridging the two disciplines. The common ground is the study politics and policies with advanced quantitative methods and formal modeling.
News
Study finds local conditions crucial in integration of refugees
Unemployment rates and attitudes towards immigration at a local level can play a significant role in the successful integration of refugees, a new study has...

Savings on commute the top benefit of working from home, survey shows
Workers around the world would like to spend more time working from home than they are currently able, according to a new study.

Time saved by working from home yields 'large benefits' for workers
The average daily commute time savings when working from home is 73 minutes in the UK, according to a new study.

Better mobile internet access 'increases desire to emigrate'
Access to mobile internet has a “sizeable impact” on people’s desire and plans to emigrate, a new study has found.

A quarter of employees would rather quit than be forced back to the office
A quarter of employees who currently work from home part of the week say they would quit their job rather than return to the office full-time, according to a...

Organisers of annual migration workshop issue call for papers
A call for papers has been issued ahead of the annual Economics and Politics of Migration workshop.

Trade shocks can have 'significant impact' on government approval ratings
Trade shocks can have a significant impact on the approval ratings of governments, a new study has shown, but the reaction can vary depending on the skill...

Study finds stressing the cost of discrimination can shift attitudes
Efforts to improve rights for lesbian, gay and bisexual people in socially conservative countries may be more effective if they appeal to the economic cost of...

Working from home: What does the future hold for the home office?
As millions of people worldwide continue to log-in from the comfort of their couch, a new project will ask whether ‘working from home’ is here to stay and...

Decline in trust of scientists driven by those with 'little previous training' in the subject
Distrust in scientists and a reluctance to follow health-related advice is more prevalent among people with little scientific education, a new study has found.

Events

Workshop on the Economics and Politics of Migration 2023
Organised by EBRD, King’s College London, and Kadir Has University
Please note: this event has passed.

2nd EBRD and King’s College London Workshop on the Economics and Politics of Migration
The Department of Political Economy is jointly organising a second major workshop on migration.
Please note: this event has passed.

Workshop on the Economics and Politics of Migration
An international team of scholars and experts will come together next month for a workshop taking an in-depth look at migration.
Please note: this event has passed.