About
An economist by training, Dr Cansın Arslan is a research fellow at The Inclusion Initiative (TII) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Prior to joining the LSE, she was a senior research fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Exeter and a research fellow at the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School.
Cansın’s research focuses on workplace inclusion. She conducts field experiments to evaluate interventions designed to support more inclusive decision-making in hiring, promotion, and performance evaluation. Working closely with large organisations, including several FTSE 100 and Nasdaq-listed companies, she seeks to identify effective and scalable approaches to building more inclusive workplaces. She also uses quasi-experimental methods to investigate the drivers of gender gaps in pay and career progression, with particular attention to how managerial attitudes and behaviours, workplace norms, and organisational culture interact with gender dynamics between managers and employees. At TII, she studies inclusion across socio-economic backgrounds, with a particular focus on hiring practices in small and medium-sized enterprises.
Cansın’s doctoral research was in development economics and examined the effects of information asymmetries in value chains and within households in developing countries. Prior to her doctoral work, she was a field research associate at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and worked for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Having conducted field experiments both within multinational firms and in developing countries, Cansın has extensive experience managing field research projects, leading teams, and collaborating with researchers and practitioners across a wide range of institutions worldwide.
Her work has been published in leading scientific journals and business outlets, including Science and Harvard Business Review.
Selected Publications
- A Field Experiment Testing Whether Accountability Reduces Racial Gaps in Performance Evaluations (with Edward Chang and Erika Kirgios). Psychological Science (2026)
- Behaviorally designed training leads to more diverse hiring (with Edward Chang, Siri Chilazi, Iris Bohnet, and Oliver Hauser) Science (2025)
- A Research-Backed Training Method That Improves Hiring Outcomes (with Siri Chilazi, Katryn Wright, Priya Gill, Edward Chang, Oliver Hauser and Iris Bohnet) Harvard Business Review (2025)
- Incorporating DEI into Decision-Making (with Edward Chang, Siri Chilazi, James Elfer, Erika Kirgios, and Oliver Hauser) Harvard Business Review (2023)
- Who communicates the information matters for technology adoption (with Meike Wollni, Judith Oduol, and Karl Hughes) World Development (2022)
- A new profile of migrants in the aftermath of the recent economic crisis (with Dumont, Kone, Ozden, Parsons, and Xenogiani). OECD Publishing (2015)
Selected Work in Progress
- Does Supervisor–Employee Gender Match Contribute to the Gender Pay Gap? (with Oliver Hauser) R&R at Journal of Human Resources
- A Review of Inclusive Hiring Interventions (with Timothy Holmes and Grace Lordan)
- The Interplay between Gender Homophily, Parental Leave, and Pay (with Alessandra Casarico, Oliver Hauser, Salvatore Lattanzio, and Almudena Sevilla)
- The mixed effects of framings on performance evaluations and aspirations (with Oliver Hauser)
Qualifications
- Doctorate in Economics (Dr.Rer.Pol) (University of Goettingen, Germany)
- MicroMasters in Data, Economics, and Development Policy (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MITx, USA)
- Master’s in Quantitative Economics (Paris School of Economics, France)
- Bachelor’s in Economics (Yeditepe University, Turkey)