Publications

October 2023
Article

Product Variety, the Cost of Living, and Welfare Across Countries

By: Alberto Cavallo, Robert C. Feenstra and Robert Inklaar

We use the structure of the Melitz (2003) model to compute the cost of living and welfare across 47 countries, and compare these to conventional measures of prices and real consumption from the International Comparisons Project (ICP). The cost of living is inferred... View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Trade

2022
Article

Nonparametric Subset Scanning for Detection of Heteroscedasticity

By: Charles R. Doss and Edward McFowland III

We propose Heteroscedastic Subset Scan (HSS), a novel method for identifying covariates that are responsible for violations of the homoscedasticity assumption in regression settings. Viewing the problem as one of anomalous pattern detection, we use subset scanning... View Details

Keywords: Scan Statistics; Anomaly Detection; Regression; Model Diagnostics

2021
Working Paper

Financial Flexibility and Corporate Employment

By: Rebecca Lester, Ethan Rouen and Braden Williams

We study the role of financial flexibility on COVID-19 employment actions. Using daily data from March through May 2020 for 354 of the largest U.S. employers, we find that firms facing a negative demand shock were 28.8 percentage points more likely to reduce their... View Details

Keywords: Financial Flexibility; COVID-19; Pandemic; Employment; Health Pandemics; System Shocks; Finance

SSRN

2024
Working Paper

Public Debt and Investment Under Political Competition: Evidence from Toxic Loans

By: Julien Sauvagnat and Boris Vallée

We examine how political considerations shape local government responses to a substantial rise in indebtedness. We use the delayed yet sharp deterioration of “toxic” loans held by French municipalities as a quasi-natural experiment to empirically investigate such... View Details

Keywords: Public Debt; Public Investments; Political Contestation; Toxic Loans; Borrowing and Debt; Investment; Public Sector; Government and Politics; Local Range; Financing and Loans

2020
Article

Immigrant Entrepreneurship in America: Evidence from the Survey of Business Owners 2007 & 2012

By: Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr

We study immigrant entrepreneurship in 2007 and 2012 using the Survey of Business Owners. First-generation immigrants create about 25% of new firms in America, but this share exceeds 40% in some states. Immigrant-owned firms tend to create fewer jobs than native-owned... View Details

Keywords: Job Creation; Employee Benefits; Owner Demographics; Exports; Outsourcing; Immigration; Entrepreneurship; Ownership; Demographics; Jobs and Positions; Compensation and Benefits; United States

Article

The Asymmetric Experience of Positive and Negative Economic Growth: Global Evidence Using Subjective Well-being Data

By: Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, George Ward, Femke De Keulenaer, Bert Van Landeghem, Georgios Kavetsos and Michael I. Norton

Are individuals more sensitive to losses than gains in terms of economic growth? We find that measures of subjective well-being are more than twice as sensitive to negative as compared to positive economic growth. We use Gallup World Poll data from over 150 countries,... View Details

Keywords: Economic Growth; Business Cycles; Welfare; Perception; Global Range

February 2010
Other Article

The Chilling Effect of Sarbanes Oxley: A Discussion of Sarbanes-Oxley and Corporate Risk-Taking

By: Aiyesha Dey

Bargeron, Lehn, and Zutter [2009. Sarbanes–Oxley and corporate risk-taking. Journal of Accounting and Economics, forthcoming] document that as compared with non-US firms, risk-taking by publicly traded companies in the US declined after the passage of the... View Details

Keywords: Risk; Corporate Risk-taking; Risky Investments; Risk and Uncertainty

March 2016
Article

Dividends as Reference Points: A Behavioral Signaling Approach

By: Malcolm Baker, Brock Mendel and Jeffrey Wurgler

We outline a dividend signaling model that features investors who are averse to dividend cuts. Managers with strong unobservable cash earnings separate by paying high dividends but retain enough to be likely not to fall short next period. The model is consistent with a... View Details

Keywords: Investment

June 2013
Article

How to Profit from 'Lean Advertising'

By: Thales S. Teixeira

This article introduces the concept of Lean Advertising, i.e., how to use non-traditional approaches to create and distribute advertising using extremely low-cost approaches online. A framework for Lean Advertising is proposed that identifies the four ways in which... View Details

Keywords: Viral Advertising; Viral Ads; Online Marketing; Lean Advertising; Digital Marketing; Advertising; Advertising Industry

December 2010
Article

Building Sustainable Hybrid Organizations: The Case of Commercial Microfinance Organizations

By: Julie Battilana and Silvia Dorado

We explore how new types of hybrid organizations (organizations that combine institutional logics in unprecedented ways) can develop and maintain their hybrid nature in the absence of a "ready-to-wear" model for handling the tensions between the logics they combine.... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Microfinance; Growth and Development Strategy; Identity; Commercialization; Balance and Stability; Policy; Recruitment; Business Model

Fourth Quarter 2008
Article

Do Funds-of-Funds Deserve Their Extra Fees?

By: Andrew Ang, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Rui Zhao

Since the after-fee returns of funds-of-funds are, on average, lower than hedge fund returns, it is easy to conclude that funds-of-funds do not add value compared to hedge funds. However, funds-of-funds should not be evaluated relative to hedge fund returns in publicly... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Investment Return; Value; Assets; Resource Allocation

Article

Businessmen and Land Ownership in the Late Nineteenth Century

By: Tom Nicholas

This article analyses the proportions of personal to real estate wealth for a group of 295 businessmen profiled in the Dictionary of business biography. It shows that businessmen who owned land on a large scale in the late nineteenth century were a comparatively small... View Details

Keywords: Ownership; Personal Finance; Property; Biography; History; Acquisition; Wealth; Power and Influence; Status and Position; Integration; Transformation; Market Transactions

December 1998
Background Note

Cash Management Practices in Small Companies

By: H. Kent Bowen, Andrew R. Jassy, Laurence E. Katz, Kevin E. Kelly and Baltej Kochar

Most small business managers claim that cash management is their leading concern. Often walking a tightrope between growth and illiquidity, small business managers face different cash management challenges than their counterparts in larger companies. Compared to larger... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Working Capital; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Design; Cash; Forecasting and Prediction; Policy; Business Strategy

Educators

We outline a dividend signaling model that features investors who are behaviorally averse to dividend cuts. Managers with strong unobservable cash earnings separate by paying high dividends but retain enough to be likely not to fall short next period. The model is... View Details

June 2016 (Revised January 2018)
Case

World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Jordan Mitchell

Nearly all environmental organizations have a similar aim: to stop the degradation of the natural environment. However, the strategies that environmental organizations choose to employ are sometimes starkly different. This case compares the models of two dissimilar... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Non-Governmental Organizations; Business Strategy

Educators