Publications

2022
Working Paper

Consumer Demand with Social Influences: Evidence from an E-Commerce Platform

By: El Hadi Caoui, Chiara Farronato, John J. Horton and Robert Schultz

For some kinds of goods, rarity itself is valued. "Fashionable'" goods are demanded in part because they are unique. In this paper, we explore the economics of rare goods using auctions of limited-edition shoes held by an e-commerce platform. We model endogenous entry... View Details

Keywords: Rare Goods; Scarcity; E-commerce; Consumer Behavior; Auctions

August 2021
Article

Voter Mobilization and Trust in Electoral Institutions: Evidence from Kenya

By: Benjamin Marx, Vincent Pons and Tavneet Suri

Voter mobilization campaigns face trade-offs in young democracies. In a large-scale experiment implemented in 2013 with the Kenyan Electoral Commission (IEBC), text messages intended to mobilize voters boosted participation but also decreased trust in electoral... View Details

Keywords: Political Participation; Electoral Institutions; Field Experiment; Voting; Political Elections; Behavior; Trust

2019
Working Paper

Real Exchange Rate Behavior: New Evidence from Matched Retail Goods

By: Alberto Cavallo, Brent Neiman and Roberto Rigobon

We use a dataset containing daily prices for thousands of matched retail products in nine countries to study tradable-goods real exchange rates. Prices were collected from the websites of large multi-channel retailers and then carefully matched into narrowly-deﬁned... View Details

Keywords: Purchasing Power Parity; Online Prices; Real Exchange Rate; Macroeconomics; Currency Exchange Rate; Price; Internet and the Web

2019
Working Paper

Judgment Aggregation in Creative Production: Evidence from the Movie Industry

By: Hong Luo, Jeffrey T. Macher and Michael Wahlen

This paper studies a novel, light-touch approach to aggregate judgment from a large number of industry experts on ideas that they encounter in their normal course of business. Our context is the movie industry, in which customer appeal is difficult to predict and... View Details

Keywords: Judgment Aggregation; Creativity; Film Entertainment; Judgments; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

SSRN

January 2019
Article

Increasing the Electoral Participation of Immigrants: Experimental Evidence from France

By: Vincent Pons and Guillaume Liegey

Improving the political participation of immigrants could advance their interests and foster their integration into receiving countries. In this study, 23,800 citizens were randomly assigned to receive visits from political activists during the lead-up to the 2010... View Details

Keywords: Electoral Behavior; Immigrants; Voting; Political Elections; Behavior; France

Article

Evidence of a Modest Price Decline in US Broadband Services

By: Shane Greenstein and Ryan McDevitt

Article

Learning Through Noticing: Theory and Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Rema Hanna, Sendhil Mullainathan and Joshua Schwartzstein

We consider a model of technological learning under which people "learn through noticing": they choose which input dimensions to attend to and subsequently learn about from available data. Using this model, we show how people with a great deal of experience may... View Details

Keywords: Perception; Behavior; Learning

Oct 2013
Talk

What Shapes the Gatekeepers? Evidence from Global Supply Chain Auditors

By: Michael W. Toffel

2013
Working Paper

U.S. High-Skilled Immigration, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship: Empirical Approaches and Evidence

By: William R. Kerr

High-skilled immigrants are a very important component of U.S. innovation and entrepreneurship. Immigrants account for roughly a quarter of U.S. workers in these fields, and they have a similar contribution in terms of output measures like patents or firm starts. This... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Diaspora; Diasporas; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Immigration

Article

The Internal Economics of the Firm: Evidence from Personnel Data

By: George P. Baker, Michael Gibbs and Bengt Holmstrom

Keywords: Economics; Business Ventures

2007
Working Paper

Mental Accounting and Small Windfalls: Evidence from an Online Grocer

By: Katherine L. Milkman, John Beshears, Todd Rogers and Max H. Bazerman

We study the effect of small windfalls on consumer spending decisions by examining the purchasing behavior of a sample of online grocery shoppers over the course of a year. We compare the purchases customers make when redeeming a $10-off coupon they received from their... View Details

Keywords: Spending; Consumer Behavior; Mathematical Methods; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry

2007
Working Paper

Diasporas and Domestic Entrepreneurs: Evidence from the Indian Software Industry

By: Ramana Nanda and Tarun Khanna

This study explores the importance of cross-border social networks for entrepreneurs in developing countries by examining ties between the Indian expatriate community and local entrepreneurs in India's software industry. We find that local entrepreneurs who have... View Details

Keywords: Diasporas; Developing Countries and Economies; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Social and Collaborative Networks; Technology Industry; India

2007
Working Paper

How Is Foreign Aid Spent? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

By: Eric D. Werker, Faisal Z. Ahmed and Charles Cohen

We use oil price fluctuations to construct a new instrument to test the impact of transfers from wealthy OPEC nations to their poorer Muslim allies. The instrument identifies plausibly exogenous variation in foreign aid. We investigate how aid is spent by tracking its... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Energy Sources; Energy Industry; Asia

winter 2007
Article

Unraveling Yields Inefficient Matchings: Evidence from Post-Season College Football Bowls

By: Guillaume R. Frechette, Alvin E. Roth and M. Utku Unver

Keywords: Entertainment; Sports Industry