Publications

Article

Anger and Regulation

By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra

We study a model in which agents experience anger when they see a firm that has displayed insufficient concern for the welfare of its clients (i.e., altruism) making high profits. Regulation can increase welfare, for example, through fines (even with no changes in... View Details

Keywords: Altruism; Populism; Public Relations; Profit; Consumer Behavior; Perception; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

2005
Book

Fit In Stand Out: Mastering the FISO Factor, The Key to Leadership Effectiveness in Business and Life

By: Blythe J. McGarvie

While studying and practicing business effectiveness, leadership expert Blythe McGarvie uncovered a vital lesson: successful leaders are systems thinkers. Two forces power business systems: integration (Fit In) and transformation (Stand Out). By mastering the FISO... View Details

Keywords: Integration; Leadership; Transformation

Research Summary

Capital Controls, Risk and Liberalization Cycles (joint with Fabio Kanczuk)

By: Laura Alfaro

We construct an Overlapping-Generations model where agents vote on whether to open or close the economy to international capital flows. Political decisions are shaped by the risk over capital and labor returns. In an open economy, the capitalists (old) completely hedge... View Details

Research Summary

Book on the Rubber Industry:

The preliminary title is "Stretching the Inelastic Rubber: Institutions & Market Power, 1870-1910".

The book is intended to cover all stages in the rubber chain, from tappers to manufacturers. It thus spams all crude rubber producing regions, a... View Details

Research Summary

'Optimal Incentive Contracts under Inequity Aversion' (with Achim Wambach) ), 2005

We analyze the Moral Hazard problem, assuming that the agent is inequity averse. Our results differ from conventional contract theory and are more in line with empirical findings than these standard results. Our key findings are: Inequity aversion alters the structure... View Details

March 6, 2020
Article

Networking Doesn't Have to Be Self-Serving

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter

How can individual leaders help to tackle big social problems? It can seem like an overwhelming, impossible task. But successful change agents have shown that networking and communication skills are key. They show up, in person, to investigate the issues and build... View Details

Keywords: Network; Self-serving; Social Issues; Networks; Communication; Leading Change

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winter 1989
Article

Split-Awards Procurement and Innovation

By: James J. Anton and Dennis A. Yao

In many procurement settings, it is possible for a buyer to split a production award between suppliers. In this article, we develop a model of split-award procurement auctions in which the split choice is endogenous. We characterize the set of equilibrium bids and... View Details

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Cost; Supply Chain; Investment; Balance and Stability

Many firms can choose between an employment mode, in which the firm controls service provision by employing professionals, sales representatives or other types of agents, and an agency (or platform) mode, in which these agents take control... View Details

Research Summary

On the Political Economy of Stabilization Programs

By: Laura Alfaro

This paper provides a political economy explanation for temporary exchange-rate-based stabilization programs by focusing on the distributional effects of real exchange-rate appreciation. I propose an economy in which agents are endowed with either tradable or... View Details

15 May 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Mobile Money Services-Design and Development for Financial Inclusion

Keywords: by Rajiv Lal & Ishan Sachdev; Banking

2020
Working Paper

Collusion in Brokered Markets

By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers and Richard Lowery

The U.S. residential real estate agency market presents a puzzle for economic theory: commissions on real estate transactions have remained high for decades even though entry is frequent and costs are low. We model the real estate agency market, and other brokered... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate; ＂Repeated Games＂; Collusion; Antitrust; Brokered Markets; Game Theory; Real Estate Industry

SSRN

Article

On the Political Economy of Temporary Stabilization Programs

By: Laura Alfaro

This paper provides a political economy explanation for temporary exchange-rate-based stabilization programs by focusing on the distributional effects of real exchange-rate appreciation. I propose an economy in which agents are endowed with either tradable or... View Details

Keywords: Government and Politics; Economy; Balance and Stability; Programs; Currency Exchange Rate; Cash; Value; Distribution

October 1995 (Revised June 1996)
Case

Li & Fung (Trading) Ltd.

Li & Fung, one of the largest export trading companies in Asia, works primarily as an agent to connect U.S. and European manufacturers and retailers of nondurable, mass-market consumer goods with suppliers located all over East Asia who manufacture products according... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Marketplace Matching; Supply Chain Management; Trade; Manufacturing Industry; Retail Industry; Asia; United States; Europe

Educators

May 2016
Article

Matching with Slot-Specific Priorities: Theory

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Tayfun Sönmez

We introduce a two-sided, many-to-one matching with contracts model in which agents with unit demand match to branches that may have multiple slots available to accept contracts. Each slot has its own linear priority order over contracts; a branch chooses contracts by... View Details

Keywords: Matching With Contracts; Stability; Strategy-proofness; School Choice; Affirmative Action; Airline Seat Upgrades; Contracts; Market Design; Marketplace Matching; Balance and Stability

Research Summary

Strength of Incentives

By: Jerry R. Green

When economists analyze the incentive properties of decision making systems they assume that all economic agents are capable of optimizing their decisions and that they respond without error to the incentives that the system creates. In this project, Jerry R. Green... View Details

November 2019
Article

Full Substitutability

By: John William Hatfield, Scott Duke Kominers, Alexandru Nichifor, Michael Ostrovsky and Alexander Westkamp

Various forms of substitutability are essential for establishing the existence of equilibria and other useful properties in diverse settings such as matching, auctions, and exchange economies with indivisible goods. We extend earlier models’ definitions of... View Details

Keywords: Substitutability; Mathematical Methods; Auctions; Market Design

May 2014
Article

Investment Incentives in Labor Market Matching

By: John William Hatfield, Fuhito Kojima and Scott Duke Kominers

We provide an illustration of how the design of labor market clearing mechanisms can affect incentives for human capital acquisition. Specifically, we extend the labor market matching model (with discrete transfers) of Kelso and Crawford (1982) to incorporate the... View Details

Keywords: Human Capital; Marketplace Matching

2016
Working Paper

Controlling Versus Enabling

By: Andrei Hagiu and Julian Wright

Revenue sharing between principals and agents is commonly used to balance double-sided moral hazard. We provide a theory of how, when such revenue-sharing is optimal, a principal allocates control rights over decisions that either party could make. We show that the... View Details

Keywords: Control Rights; Decision Authority; Employment; Independent Contractors; Organizational Theory; Digital Platforms; Governance Controls; Ethics; Vertical Integration

SSRN

2022
Working Paper

Heterogeneous Investors and Stock Market Fluctuations

By: Odhrain McCarthy and Sebastian Hillenbrand

We introduce a heterogeneous agent model which features extrapolative beliefs and time-varying risk aversion. The model leads to an empirical framework which we estimate with stock prices, survey data and risk aversion measures. We find that extrapolative beliefs and... View Details

Keywords: Stock Market; Investment Decisions; Asset Pricing; Investment; Behavioral Finance; Stocks