Publications

05 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

Are Virtual Tours Still Worth It in Real Estate? Evidence from 75,000 Home Sales

Virtual tours helped propel homebuying through the height of COVID-19. But now that life is back to normal, new research finds these 3D tours don’t significantly boost sale prices and may even prolong a property’s time on the market. When factoring in the quality of... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Real Estate

Article

The Not-So-Common-Wealth of Australia: Evidence for a Cross-Cultural Desire for a More Equal Distribution of Wealth.

By: Michael I. Norton, David T. Neal, Cassandra L. Govan, Dan Ariely and Elise Holland

Recent evidence suggests that Americans underestimate wealth inequality in the United States and favor a more equal wealth distribution (Norton & Ariely, 2011). Does this pattern reflect ideological dynamics unique to the United States, or is the phenomenon evident in... View Details

Keywords: Wealth; Equality and Inequality; Australia; United States

24 Mar 2020
Working Paper Summaries

Free Riding in Loan Approvals: Evidence From SME Lending in Peru

Keywords: by Irani Arraiz, Miriam Bruhn, Benjamin N. Roth, Claudia Ruiz-Ortega, and Rodolfo Stucchi

04 Sep 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Investing Outside the Box: Evidence from Alternative Vehicles in Private Capital

Keywords: by Josh Lerner, Jason Mao, Antoinette Schoar, and Nan R. Zhang

2022
Working Paper

The Limits of Decentralized Administrative Data Collection: Experimental Evidence from Colombia

By: Natalia Garbiras-Diaz and Tara Slough

States collect vast amounts of data for use in policymaking and public administration. To do so, central governments frequently solicit data from decentralized bureaucrats. Because central governments use these data in policymaking, decentralized bureaucrats may face... View Details

Keywords: Decentralization; Policy-making; Policy/economics; Policy Evaluation; Governance; Government Administration; Government and Politics; Government Legislation; Policy; Public Opinion; Analytics and Data Science; Latin America; South America; Colombia

May–June 2023
Article

Which Firms Gain from Digital Advertising? Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Weijia Dai, Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca

Measuring the returns of advertising opportunities continues to be a challenge for many businesses. We design and run a field experiment in collaboration with Yelp across 18,294 firms in the restaurant industry to understand which types of businesses gain more from... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Digital Marketing; Outcome or Result

2022
Working Paper

Coordination and Incumbency Advantage in Multi-Party Systems: Evidence from French Elections

By: Kevin Dano, Francesco Ferlenga, Vincenzo Galasso, Caroline Le Pennec and Vincent Pons

In theory, free and fair elections can improve the selection of politicians and incentivize them to exert effort. In practice, incumbency advantage and coordination issues may lead to the (re)election of bad politicians. We ask whether these two forces compound each... View Details

Keywords: Political Parties; Incumbent Politicians; Democracy; Political Elections; Competitive Advantage

May 2022
Article

When Does Product Liability Risk Chill Innovation? Evidence from Medical Implants

By: Alberto Galasso and Hong Luo

Liability laws designed to compensate for harms caused by defective products may also affect innovation. We examine this issue by exploiting a major quasi-exogenous increase in liability risk faced by U.S. suppliers of polymers used to manufacture medical implants.... View Details

Keywords: Product Liability; Innovation; Tort; Medical Devices; Vertical Foreclosure; Product; Innovation and Invention; Legal Liability; Laws and Statutes; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

Article

Copyright and Creativity: Evidence from Italian Opera in the Napoleonic Age

By: Michela Giorcelli and Petra Moser

January 2022
Article

Investing Outside the Box: Evidence from Alternative Vehicles in Private Equity

By: Josh Lerner, Jason Mao, Antoinette Schoar and Nan R. Zhang

This paper uses previously unexplored custodial data to examine the use of alternative investment vehicles in private equity (PE) over four decades. We document a steep increase in the capital directed to alternative vehicles, with these vehicles approaching a 40%... View Details

Keywords: Alternative Investment Vehicles; Investment Funds; Private Equity; Venture Capital; Performance

2020
Other Unpublished Work

Comment: Are ISS Recommendations Informative? Evidence from Assessments of Compensation Practices

By: Susanna Gallani, Mary Ellen Carter and Ana Albuquerque

2020
Working Paper

Incentive Power and Knowledge Sharing Among Employees: Evidence from the Field

By: Wei Cai, Susanna Gallani and Jee-Eun Shin

There is consensus, both in the literature and in practice, about knowledge sharing within organizations being a key determinant of success. However, organizations struggle to sustain employees’ engagement in knowledge sharing. One challenge lies in the fact that,... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Knowledge Sharing; Employee Driven Innovation; Innovation Appropriability; Contract Design; High-powered Incentives; Low-powered Incentives; Incentives; Pay-for-Performance; Rank-and-file; Employees; Knowledge Sharing; Innovation and Invention; Motivation and Incentives; Creativity; Performance

2013
Working Paper

Can More Precise Public Information Increase Information Asymmetry? Evidence from Earnings

By: Ian D. Gow, Daniel J. Taylor and R. E. Verrecchia

Article

How Elastic Are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments

By: Ilyana Kuziemko, Michael I. Norton, Emmanuel Saez and Stefanie Stantcheva

We analyze randomized online survey experiments providing interactive, customized information on U.S. income inequality, the link between top income tax rates and economic growth, and the estate tax. The treatment has large effects on views about inequality but only... View Details

Keywords: Income; Taxation; Economic Growth; United States

November 2014
Article

Government Green Procurement Spillovers: Evidence from Municipal Building Policies in California

By: Timothy Simcoe and Michael W. Toffel

We study how government green procurement policies influence private-sector demand for similar products. Specifically, we measure the impact of municipal policies requiring governments to construct green buildings on private-sector adoption of the U.S. Green Building... View Details

Keywords: Public Procurement; Green Building; Quality Certification; Environmental Policy; Buildings and Facilities; Environmental Sustainability; Policy; Government and Politics; Green Technology Industry; Public Administration Industry; California

24 Jan 2014
Talk

Assessing Working Conditions in Global Supply Chains: Evidence from Social Auditors

By: Michael W. Toffel

2013
Article

What Goes Up Must Come Down? Experimental Evidence on Intuitive Forecasting

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, Andreas Fuster, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian

Do laboratory subjects correctly perceive the dynamics of a mean-reverting time series? In our experiment, subjects receive historical data and make forecasts at different horizons. The time series process that we use features short-run momentum and long-run partial... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Cognition and Thinking

2012
Article

Specialization and Variety in Repetitive Tasks: Evidence from a Japanese Bank

By: B. Staats and F. Gino

Sustaining operational productivity in the completion of repetitive tasks is critical to many organizations' success. Yet research points to two different work-design-related strategies for accomplishing this goal: specialization to capture the benefits of repetition... View Details

Keywords: Motivation; Productivity; Specialization; Variety; Work Fragmentation; Boundaries; Performance Productivity; Organizations; Research; Strategy; Motivation and Incentives; Opportunities; Market Transactions; Resource Allocation; Performance; Goals and Objectives; Learning

December 2012
Article

Evidence on the Use of Unverifiable Estimates in Required Goodwill Impairment

By: Karthik Ramanna and Ross L. Watts

SFAS 142 requires managers to estimate the current fair value of goodwill to determine goodwill write-offs. In promulgating the standard, the FASB predicted managers will, on average, use the fair value estimates to convey private information on future cash flows. The... View Details

Keywords: Goodwill Impairment; Fair-value Accounting; FASB; SFAS 142; Fair Value Accounting; Standards; Cash Flow; Agency Theory; Motivation and Incentives; Forecasting and Prediction; Goodwill Accounting

SSRN