Aiko Schmeisser

Aiko's research sits at the intersection of labor, political, and behavioral economics, focusing on the role of individuals’ preferences, beliefs, and identities in the labor market. His work has examined, for instance, how unionization affects employees' political ideologies, as revealed through their donations to U.S. political candidates. 

In ongoing work, he studies how workplace experiences impact political participation, how peer preferences can affect workers' job choices, how workers form beliefs about their labor market opportunities, and how the perception of social identities shapes disparities in the labor market. 

Throughout his projects, he employs large-scale observational data from multiple countries and applies rigorous quasi-experimental methods to identify causal relationships. Aiko received his PhD from the Berlin School of Economics in 2025 and visited Harvard University's Center for Labor and a Just Economy for a research stay in 2024. Please visit his homepage for more detailed information on his research.