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.