Christina Felfe’s research focuses on applied microeconomics and behavioral economics, with a particular emphasis on the topics of education, labor, and migration. Her work tackles questions of societal relevance, such as inequality and polarization. Her overarching aim is to provide evidence‑based policy advice that incorporates the perspectives of target groups and stakeholders. A special focus of her research lies on the role of institutions—as well as attitudes and norms—as levers for equal opportunity and the integration of minorities, especially children.

Her scientific approach is characterized by an innovative and systematic use of administrative data sets, but above all by large‑scale primary data collection. In particular, she has pioneered the combination of carefully designed lab‑in‑the‑field experiments with extensive, representative samples and state‑of‑the‑art methods of causal inference. Another hallmark of her work is the close collaboration with the fields of human‑computer interaction and psychology. This innovative, interdisciplinary research strategy allows her to measure attitudes and norms at scale and to analyze their causes and consequences reliably—a perspective that is essential for understanding the effects of social‑policy measures and that has previously been only marginally addressed empirically.

Within the framework of her ERC Consolidator Grant, she investigates the development of social cohesion at early age. Social cohesion is a fundamental prerequisite for stable democratic societies. At the same time, democracies worldwide are under increasing pressure: polarization deepens societal divides, hardens public discourse, and threatens the functioning of democratic institutions. Christina Felfe’s research makes a decisive contribution to this debate by focusing on the development of social preferences that feed polarizing dynamics. Her current work shows that both universalist and group‑based orientations already emerge in childhood and that their underlying mechanisms can be analyzed causally. This approach opens entirely new avenues for studying the foundations of social cohesion.