Gábor Nyéki

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.

Working papers

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.

[draft – November 2024]

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.

[draft – February 2020]

Work in progress

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

[extended abstract – November 2024]

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