Beatrice Montano

Welcome!

I am a PhD Candidate in Political Science at Columbia University.

I am on the 2025-26 academic job market.

My research focuses on the behavioral political economy of social norms. I investigate the persistence and consequences of gender-based violence, and identify effective pathways to mitigate it through political behavior. In my work I combine large-scale descriptive and experimental data with fieldwork-based insights in the context of global development. My research has been published in The Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, and Behavioural Public Policy.

I have received support from the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL), Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP), Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons, and Columbia University's Libraries, among others.

In 2023 I was awarded Runner-Up as the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Gender Fellows, and in 2022 I was awarded the William T.R. Fox Fellowship in Political Science. I have been affiliated to the Laboratory for Effective Anti-Poverty Policies (LEAP) at Bocconi University since its inception in 2016, and to the Impact Evaluation Lab at the Economic Social Research Foundation (ESRF) of Tanzania since 2021.

I earned my bachelor's and master's degrees in Economics and Social Sciences from Bocconi University in Milan (Italy). Before joining Columbia, I worked as a field research assistant at the Research and Evaluation Unit for BRAC Uganda and as the research manager at the Altruistic Capital Lab at the Marshall Institute at the London School of Economics.

1. Narrative Entertainment Changes Minds: a Meta-Analysis of Recent Experiments (with Bardia Rahmani, Donald P. Green and Dylan W. Groves)
   Behavioural Public Policy (Accepted)
   
   [Ungated PDF]
   
   Abstract

   Is narrative entertainment simply a form of recreation, or does it have meaningful effects on public opinion? Building on prior reviews, we present a meta-analysis of 377 findings from 77 experiments evaluating the persuasive effects of narrative radio, television, and film, including a growing body of work from low- and middle-income countries. Our sample includes both entertainment-first narratives---popular media created primarily to entertain but which may incidentally shape audiences’ attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors---and education-first narratives designed by policymakers to inform, persuade, or motivate public action. Using a hierarchical-effects model, we assess narrative media’s influence across a wide range of settings and issue domains. The results suggest that narrative entertainment is quite influential, with sizable persuasive effects that remain apparent weeks after initial exposure. A smaller literature reports head-to-head tests of the relative effectiveness of narrative versus non-narrative messages; although inconclusive, the evidence suggests that narratives may be only slightly more persuasive than non-narrative messages. If true, this finding would imply that the main advantage of narratives may be their ability to attract and engage large and diverse audiences. We conclude by calling attention to gaps in the literature and proposing avenues for further research.

2. The Effects of Independent Local Radio on Tanzanian Public Opinion: Evidence from a Planned Natural Experiment (with Donald P. Green, Dylan W. Groves, Constantine Manda and Bardia Rahmani)
   The Journal of Politics, 86(1), 231-240. (2024)
   
   [Ungated PDF] [Replication Data] [Tweet] [JOP Blog]
   
   Abstract

   We describe a natural experiment occasioned by an abrupt increase in the transmission range of an independent Tanzanian radio station whose broadcasts emphasize current affairs and gender equality. Some villages that formerly lay outside the catchment area of this radio station could now receive it, while nearby villages remained outside of reception range. Before the change in transmitter range in 2018, we conducted a baseline survey in both treated and untreated villages and found them to be similar in terms of prevailing social attitudes and political interest. An endline survey conducted in 2020 shows that respondents in areas that received the new radio signal were substantially more likely to listen to the station, and their levels of political interest and knowledge about domestic politics were significantly higher than their counterparts in villages that the signal could not reach. Attitude change on a range of gender issues, however, was sporadic.

3. A Radio Drama’s Effects on Attitudes Toward Early and Forced Marriage: Results From a Field Experiment in Rural Tanzania (with Donald P. Green, Dylan W. Groves, Constantine Manda and Bardia Rahmani)
   Comparative Political Studies, 56(8), 1115-1155. (2023)
   
   [Ungated PDF] [Replication Data] [Tweet] [IPA Website]
   Abstract

   Early and forced marriage (EFM) is an increasing focus of international organizations and local non-government organizations. This study assesses the extent to which attitudes and norms related to EFM can be changed by locally tailored media campaigns. A two-hour radio drama set in rural Tanzania was presented to Tanzanian villagers as part of a placebo-controlled experiment randomized at the village level. A random sample of 1200 villagers was interviewed at baseline and invited to a presentation of the radio drama, 83% of whom attended. 95% of baseline respondents were re-interviewed two weeks later, and 97% 15 months after that. The radio drama produced sizable and statistically significant effects on attitudes and perceived norms concerning forced marriage, which was the focus of the radio drama, as well as more general attitudes about gender equality. Fifteen months later, treatment effects diminished, but we continue to see evidence of EFM-related attitude change.

• Misperceptions of gender norms and political advocacy: experimental evidence from rural Tanzania
  
  Job Market Paper [Draft coming soon!]
  
  Abstract

  I examine how misperceived gender norms affect women's political advocacy using experimental evidence from rural Tanzania. Through a face-to-face experiment with ⁓ 3,000 villagers, I share accurate information about community attitudes toward early marriage and measured subsequent political behavior. While villages overwhelmingly reject early marriage (median 95%), residents systematically underestimate this progressiveness. While revealing these true attitudes doesn't universally boost political advocacy, it prompts strategic responses, particularly among women. When aware of community support, progressive women focus their advocacy efforts on engaging political elites rather than persuading peers. This strategic behavior occurs both when misperceptions are corrected and among control women who already believed their community was progressive. The findings demonstrate that correcting misperceptions can enhance strategic political participation, contributing to literature on women's political behavior and social-norm nudging in gender equality contexts.

• What women need: the public policy effect of patriarchy (with Simone Paci and Chiara Superti)
  
  [PDF: Spring 2025; Under Review]
  Abstract

  Even as male political leaders increasingly portray themselves as women's rights advocates, gender gaps in economic and political power persist. We propose that patriarchal norms significantly influence how male leaders understand "what women need" and, consequently, which "pro-women" policies they pursue. Widespread paternalism leads to protective measures focused on women's safety instead of emancipatory policies aimed at promoting economic independence. Examining Italian municipalities, we compare the effects of increased salience of gender issues on spending across towns with different historical patriarchal norms. In contexts with weak patriarchal norms, mayors with daughters allocate 11% more to emancipatory policies and 16% less to protective ones. In areas with strong patriarchal norms, they more than double protective policy investments while reducing emancipatory spending by 7%. Bolstering our argument, non-native mayors' policy choices reflect their hometown norms, while non-term-limited mayors demonstrate similar patterns. Cross-national survey evidence is also consistent: male respondents with daughters prefer protective policies in countries with stronger patriarchal norms, while emancipatory policies prevail in those with weaker norms.

• The persuasive power of Africa’s High Courts: experimental evidence from Tanzania (with Salma Emmanuel, Donald P. Green, Dylan W. Groves, Constantine Manda, and Bardia Rahmani)
  
  [PDF: Fall 2024; Under Review]
  Abstract

  Do rulings by high courts influence social attitudes and perceived norms? Evidence from outside of industrialized democracies is scarce. This paper investigates the influence of a recent Tanzanian high court decision that laws permitting marriage for girls under the age of 18 are unconstitutional. We begin by showing that just 8% of rural Tanzanians had heard about the ruling one year after it was made. We then report the results of a lab-in-the-field experiment to test whether media reports about the court's decision influence attitudes, perceived norms, and intentions to report early marriage to authorities. We randomly assigned 1,950 respondents in rural Tanzania to hear a radio news story about the ruling or to a control condition. Respondents who heard the report were 8 percentage points more likely to reject early marriage and 5 percentage points more likely to say they would report early marriage to authorities, but no more likely to believe their rural community rejects early marriage or to volunteer to speak out publicly against early marriage. The effect of the report attenuated but did not disappear when it included the information that Tanzania's Attorney General disagreed with the court decision. We conclude that high court rulings can influence public opinion, but these effects depend on dissemination and framing by news media.

• Narrative entertainment shapes policy priorities: evidence from four field experiments in Tanzania (with Salma Emmanuel, Donald P. Green, Dylan W. Groves, Constantine Manda and Bardia Rahmani)
  
  [PDF: Fall 2024]
  Abstract

  A growing body of work finds that entertainment-education interventions can influence attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, but few studies consider their effects on audiences' political preferences. We present results from a series of experiments conducted in Tanzania that estimate the impact of four radio dramas on how audiences prioritize protecting the environment, countering gender-based violence, reducing early forced marriage, and improving access to HIV treatment. Interviewing listeners 2-4 weeks after they were exposed to the drama, we find that three of the four dramas significantly increased listeners’ preference for hypothetical candidates promising to address the issue featured in the drama, and all four dramas elevated the perception that the issue represents a top priority for the community. Pooling across studies (N = 4,504), the effects of narrative messages on voting and prioritization persist more than 16 months after the audio screening and spill over to the spouses of audio screening attendees.

• Increasing awareness of Gender-Based Violence outside of the household: experimental evidence from a field experiment in rural Tanzania (First Author; with Salma Emmanuel, Donald P. Green, Dylan W. Groves and Bardia Rahmani)
  
  [PDF: Spring 2025]
  Abstract

  Nearly 1 in 3 women worldwide have experienced physical and/or sexual violence, and still its prevalence is widely believed to be underestimated. While previous research focuses on Intimate Partner Violence, this paper shifts the attention to violence outside of the household. We provide one of the first detailed measurement of the perception of the risk that women face in public spaces in Sub-Saharian Africa, and of communities' intent to mobilize against perpetrators. Can media increase awareness of such risks and help prioritize GBV as a societal issue? Through a field experiment across 34 villages in rural Tanzania, we show that a locally-tailored radio soap-opera has the capacity to do so, and that its effects decay but are still detectable more than a year later. Moreover, we show how these changes spillover from audience members to their spouses and teenage children, magnifying the total effect of this easily scalable intervention.

• Radio dramas can build political support for environmental protection: evidence from a field experiment in rural Tanzania (with Bardia Rahmani, Salma Emmanuel, Donald P. Green and Dylan W. Groves)
  
  [PDF: Fall 2024]
  Abstract

  Africa is highly vulnerable to climate change, yet voters in the region rarely prioritize environmental protection at the ballot box. Can media campaigns raise the political salience of environmental issues? We report the results of a placebo-controlled experiment conducted in Tanzania in which 1,360 respondents from 34 villages were randomly assigned to attend a screening of a radio drama designed to generate support for environmentalism. The drama follows rural villagers as they campaign against a corrupt bargain between developers and a public official to exploit the community's resources. Outcomes were assessed through a survey conducted one month later. Participants who were randomly exposed to the drama became more knowledgeable about climate change, more likely to cite environmental protection as a political priority, and more supportive of pro-environmental policies and candidates. A year later, treatment effects remain detectable for certain measures but decay for others, highlighting the importance of sustained messaging.

• Socialization through misperception: cross-generational gender attitudes in rural Tanzania
  
  Dissertation work
  
  Abstract

  Where do patriarchal norms come from? Examining evidence from a set of large-scale surveys about gender attitudes collected from more than 650 families across 66 rural villages in Tanzania, I show that teenagers’ attitudes are only very marginally congruent to those held by their parents. However, a striking empirical regularity emerges: teenagers overestimate their parents’ progressiveness when the parents are more conservative than their community, and underestimate it when their parents are more progressive. Thus, teenagers believe their parents to be more in line with the broader community’s norms than they actually are. Therefore, communities need not be theorized as an alternative channel of socialization as opposed to parents but also as a moderator of parental transmission. This finding contributes an explanation to why progressive gender norms change at a slow pace even in the face of rapid economic, social, and political change.

• Patriarchal norms and the willingness-to-pay for women's freedom of movement: experimental evidence from rural Tanzania (with Silvia Barbareschi and Stefano Tripodi)
  
  Dissertation work
  
  Abstract

  This study examines how information about gender-based violence (GBV) affects household decision-making regarding women's mobility in rural Tanzania. In patriarchal contexts, men often control women's movement through intra-household bargaining. This paper leverages a pre-existing randomized edutainment trial that raised awareness of safety risks, following up with married couples (N=236) through incentivized elicitation of husbands' willingness-to-pay (WTP) for their wife's safe transport to income-generating opportunities. Husbands treated in the RCT were less willing to pay for their wife's transport, suggesting they prefer restricting mobility over investing in safety when perceiving higher risks. Among all participants (N=661 women, N=647 men) from the original RCT, WTP for safety was measured through a conjoint experiment presenting hypothetical scenarios mirroring the husbands' elicitation. The increased risk perception produced conflicting behavioral responses within couples. Husbands showed no increased likelihood of paying for wives' safe transport, while safety remained an amenity women were willing to pay for. This divergence highlights tension between women's aspirations and patriarchal constraints, suggesting GBV-awareness campaigns must address underlying gender norms shaping household resource allocation and decision-making to truly enhance women's autonomy.

• Religious elite messaging and women’s political participation: evidence from a survey experiment in Tanzania (with Salma Emmanuel, Dylan W. Groves, Francis Xavier Ngatigwa, Bardia Rahmani, and Donald P. Green)
  
  [Draft available upon request]
  
  Abstract

  We present the results of two experiments conducted in northeastern Tanzania that estimate the effect of messages from religious leaders on villagers' support for women's political participation (WPP). Across both studies (N = 4,701), we find that a pro-WPP radio message from a progressive religious leader made villagers more likely to say they would encourage their daughter or niece to run for political office. These effects on behavioral intentions persisted at least a month after exposure. Moreover, we find suggestive evidence that the treatment had spillover effects on children of the original respondents, in particular influencing their interest in politics and their desire to serve in government someday. By contrast, anti-WPP messages from conservative religious actors had negative effects on WPP-related attitudes and norms. The results suggest that interventions that leverage local religious elites can effectively reduce familial gatekeeping of women's political participation in the developing world.

• The effects of mass media on political and social attitudes: evidence from a radio distribution experiment in Tanzania (with Donald P. Green, Dylan W. Groves, and Bardia Rahmani)
  
  [Draft available upon request]
  
  Abstract

  For nearly a century, scholars have studied the ways in which exposure to mass communication influences social and political attitudes. Although experimental studies abound, they primarily focus on how exposure to a particular program or channel affects what audiences think; rarely have experiments randomly provided the means to consume a particular type of mass media. The present the results of two experiments in rural Tanzania in which survey respondents were randomly assigned to receive radios and were re-interviewed approximately 15-20 months later. Although the treatment group, as expected, became much more likely to listen to radio than the control group, the downstream effects on political and social attitudes are mixed. We find no appreciable effects on political participation or interest in politics, but we do see gains in knowledge about current events and increased concern about crime. Attitudes about gender equality tend to move in the more progressive direction, and those who received radios also tend to become more accepting of stigmatized groups. Those in the treatment group came to rate the ruling party more favorably, perhaps reflecting the political capture of nominally independent radio stations in the region, but these effects are not large and do not apply to ratings of the current president.

• What Men Need: how men's incentive structures shaped pathways to women's long-term empowerment in post-WWII Italy (with Simone Paci and Chiara Superti)
  
  Abstract

  Does female empowerment within the economic or the political spheres engenders women's economic and political empowerment in the short and long run? We argue and show that gains from moments of political and economic empowerment are sustainable in the long run only when men do not perceive them as a threat to their own power status -- which tends to be the case with incremental female access to the labor market in lower skilled jobs, rather than through gains in political leadership. We combine rich historical data from Italy -- including individual-level records of political dissidents (1880-), official rolls of partisans (participants to the Italian resistance movement, 1943-1945) as well as >200 hours of AI-coded interviews of the women of the movement, and referenda from the 50s and 60s -- with contemporary data on female emancipation -- both economic and political. We leverage historical differences in economic and political participation to show differential effects of past empowerment on today's - and we gain causal traction on this question by leveraging two separate exogenous predictors of the``necessity'' for new female engagement. We explore a series of potential implications of our theory such as the differential post-war effect by level of patriarchy and by level of threat, and the mechanisms underpinning the divergent legacies of economic and political participation, such as the re-shaping of narratives about women political and societal roles. We complement this analysis with evidence from contemporary cross-national survey data, revealing patterns consistent with our argument across diverse political and cultural contexts.

• Youth’s civic duty: evidence from a field experiment in Tanzanian schools (with Salma Emmanuel, Dylan W. Groves, and Neema Msechu)
  
  Press Coverage: The Citizen Funding: Oxford Policy Management, Data and Evidence to end Extreme Poverty (DEEP), Tanzania Challenge Fund ($38,000)
  Abstract

  Limited youth civic participation represents a critical barrier to community development in rural Tanzania, where young people comprise 43% of the population under 15 years but remain marginalized from democratic processes that shape their future. Despite comprising the demographic majority, Tanzanian youth face significant obstacles including limited civic education, resource constraints, and lack of practical experience in community problem-solving --- creating a cycle where they lack confidence to engage meaningfully in local development initiatives. Girls face particularly acute constraints, experiencing heavier domestic responsibilities, greater skepticism when assuming leadership roles, and systematic exclusion from decision-making processes that further limit their civic engagement opportunities compared to boys. Our qualitative fieldwork with secondary school students and educators revealed key insights about current civic education approaches, youth leadership aspirations, and the gendered barriers to political participation, including systematic discrimination against female leaders and exclusion from community decision-making. Building on these findings, we will implement a school-level randomized controlled trial testing interactive community engagement workshops across approximately 1,500 students in 40 schools in Tanzania's Tanga Region, comparing students who participate in collaborative campaign development exercises to those receiving traditional education workshops, with measurement of civic knowledge, leadership aspirations, gender attitudes toward women's political participation, and behavioral intentions toward community participation.

• Leveraging religious leaders to counter human trafficking in rural Tanzania (with Salma Emmanuel and Dylan W. Groves)
  
  Funding: U.S. Department of State’s Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons and Innovation for Poverty Action (IPA), Human Trafficking Research Initiative ($13,000) [Project Website]
  Abstract

  Human trafficking represents a critical form of gender-based violence in rural Tanzania, where traffickers systematically exploit young women and children through false promises of employment opportunities that lead to forced labor in domestic work, agriculture, and commercial sexual exploitation. Religious leaders possess powerful platforms of influence that have the potential to shape community attitudes, family relationships, and community practices, making them uniquely positioned to counter trafficking through consistent messaging and activism while supporting survivor reintegration by combating social stigma. Our qualitative fieldwork with Tanzanian NGOs and trafficking survivors revealed key insights about victim-blaming dynamics, trafficking heterogeneity, and the potential risks and benefits of religious leader involvement, informing our pilot design that tests both recorded media messages through an in-person survey experiment across 1,000 respondents in 14 villages and a qualitative assessment of in-person message delivery by trained religious leaders. Building on pilot findings, we plan a national-scale RCT testing both radio-broadcast religious messages and direct in-person counseling approaches to identify the most effective and scalable intervention strategies for reducing trafficking nationwide.

• The effect of climate change news on public opinion about the environment: evidence from a survey experiment in Tanzania (with Salma Emmanuel, Dylan W. Groves and Bardia Rahmani)
  Abstract

  What is the effect of climate-focused media on public opinion in developing countries? We conducted a survey of climate change knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intentions among 496 respondents in rural northeastern Tanzania. We find that while 70% of respondents recognize environmental decline, less than 57% are aware of climate change's negative impacts and just 16% know that climate change is primarily caused by activities outside Tanzania. To address this knowledge gap, we developed two 2-minute radio news reports with local Tanzanian radio station Pangani FM describing climate change causes and consequences. The first clip emphasizes local responsibility for environmental degradation; the second attributes responsibility to China and the United States. We randomly assigned respondents to listen to one news vignette or a control condition. Treatments dramatically increased respondents' understanding of human causes and negative consequences of climate change and moderately increased willingness to enforce natural resource governance rules, but did not influence attitudes about balancing environmental conservation and economic self-interest. The international causes clip suggestively decreased willingness to engage in local environmental protection efforts.

• Teachers' prejudice: experimental evidence from rural Tanzania (with Salma Emmanuel)
  
  Funding: Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL), Learning for all Initiative ($9,000)
• Sauti na Ushiriki: political elite messaging and democratic attitudes in Tanzania (with Salma Emmanuel and Daniel B. Markovits)
  
  Funding: Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP), University of California - Berkeley, West Africa Regional Hub ($3,000)
• Can media campaigns increase female voter turnout in Sub-Saharian Africa? Evidence from a nation-wide field experiment (with Dylan W. Groves, Donald P. Green, Elizabeth Levy Paluck, and Bardia Rahmani)
  
  Funding: Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL), Governance Initiative, Multidisciplinary Research ($30,000)
• Play Like a Girl: experimental evidence from women sports on gender attitudes (with Julian E. Gerez)
  
  Funding: Columbia Experimental Laboratory in the Social Sciences (CELSS), Columbia University, Seed Grant ($2,000) and Provost Diversity Fellows, Columbia University, Small Grants ($1,000)