I am a senior research specialist at Princeton University and an assistant professor at the African School of Economics. I received my PhD in economics from Duke University.
My research falls into labor economics and political economy. Within labor economics, I focus on the labor outcomes of software engineers and other tech workers.
E-mail: gnyeki@princeton.edu. If you read Spanish, then my name is pronounced pretty close to how you would say gábor ñéki. It is written as [ˈɡaːbor ˈɲeːki] in IPA.
Screening for Engineering Talent
Summary: Software firms endogenously choose their production technology. In a signaling model, choosing a high-effort programming language attracts high-ability engineers. I show evidence for the model in a data set on engineer skills, and in another one on U.S. job postings.
Does Nonviolence Work? The U.S. Civil Rights Movement and Institutional Change
Summary: Peaceful protests made U.S. congressional districts more liberal on civil-rights and welfare issues. Violent protests were ineffective and may have backfired. Civil-rights protests prompted the GOP’s entry into Southern politics.
Manager Feedback Style and Workplace Productivity
Summary: We use neural networks to capture the tone of workplace feedback between software engineers. Using an instrumental variables strategy, we show that “toxic” feedback reduces engineer productivity.
Co-authors: Calvin Jahnke and Carolyn Tsao
Learning Quality in Non-Routine Occupations
Summary: I introduce a novel measure of individual output quality at software firms. An identification strategy that incorporates machine learning shows learning on the job among engineers.
The Effect of Technology Training for Women in Nigeria
Co-authors: Martin Abel and Oyebola Okunogbe
Parental Education and Gender Inequality: Evidence from Colonial Schools in Nigeria
Co-authors: Léonard Wantchékon and Dozie Okoye
Social and Political Institutions, and Colonial Schools in Nigeria
Co-authors: Léonard Wantchékon and Dozie Okoye
Shaping Students’ Education and Career Aspirations: Evidence from Nigeria’s National Youth Service Corps
Co-authors: Oyebola Okunogbe and Léonard Wantchékon
Evaluating Multidimensional Programs in the Presence of Endogenous, Multidimensional Networks
Co-authors: Robert Garlick and Kate Orkin
Image Concerns and Voting Order in Group Decisions
Co-author: Gergely Hajdu