Sandra Polanía-Reyes

This profile was current as of 2018, when she was part of the on-campus Kellogg community.

Sandra Polanía-Reyes (PhD, University College London; PhD, University of Siena), a 2017–18 Kellogg visiting fellow, is a visiting assistant professor of economics at the Keough School of Global Affairs.

Polanía-Reyes is an experimental economist working at the intersection of development and behavioral economics and prosocial behavior. Her research comprises design and evaluation of effective behavioral policy interventions in developing countries. In particular, she conducts large-scale laboratory economic experiments in the field to study individual preferences and community characteristics that contribute to the common good and help to overcome collective action problems such as social dilemmas and coordination failures.

While at Kellogg, she will examine experimental evidence on cooperation in three environments in Colombia: employees within one organization, beneficiaries of a conditional cash transfer program, and users of natural resources.

Also a fellow of the Center for Ethics and Culture at University of Notre Dame, Polanía-Reyes is a research associate at Corpovisionarios, a Colombian think tank on social innovation. She has engaged with communities in Bogotá, London, Siena and Berkeley over the last fourteen years.

Her academic work has appeared in the Journal of Economic Literature and Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, among other journals and books.