Publications

Article

How Market Power Affects Dynamic Pricing: Evidence from Inventory Fluctuations at Car Dealerships

By: Ayelet Israeli, Fiona Scott-Morton, Jorge Silva-Risso and Florian Zettelmeyer

This paper investigates empirically the effect of market power on dynamic pricing in the presence of inventories. Our setting is the auto retail industry; we analyze how automotive dealerships adjust prices to inventory levels under varying degrees of market power. We... View Details

Keywords: Dynamic Pricing; Market Power; Pricing; Price Discrimination; Inventory Production; Marketing; Price; Competitive Strategy; Auto Industry; Retail Industry

2022
Article

Alleviating Time Poverty Among the Working Poor: A Pre-Registered Longitudinal Field Experiment

By: A.V. Whillans and Colin West

Poverty entails more than a scarcity of material resources—it also involves a shortage of time. To examine the causal benefits of reducing time poverty, we conducted a longitudinal feld experiment over six consecutive weeks in an urban slum in Kenya with a sample of... View Details

Keywords: Time; Subjective Well Being; Administrative Costs; Friction; Poverty; Well-being; Money; Perception; Kenya

Article

A Prescriptive Analytics Framework for Optimal Policy Deployment Using Heterogeneous Treatment Effects

By: Edward McFowland III, Sandeep Gangarapu, Ravi Bapna and Tianshu Sun

We define a prescriptive analytics framework that addresses the needs of a constrained decision-maker facing, ex ante, unknown costs and benefits of multiple policy levers. The framework is general in nature and can be deployed in any utility maximizing context, public... View Details

Keywords: Prescriptive Analytics; Heterogeneous Treatment Effects; Optimization; Observed Rank Utility Condition (OUR); Between-treatment Heterogeneity; Machine Learning; Decision Making; Analysis; Mathematical Methods

Purchase

Winter 2021
Article

Can Staggered Boards Improve Value? Causal Evidence from Massachusetts

By: Robert Daines, Shelley Xin Li and Charles C.Y. Wang

We study the effect of staggered boards (SBs) using a quasi-experiment: a 1990 law that imposed an SB on all Massachusetts-incorporated firms. The law led to an increase in Tobin's Q, investment in CAPEX and R&D, patents, higher-quality patented innovations, and... View Details

Keywords: Staggered Board; Entrenchment; Life-cycle; Tobin's Q; Innovation; Profitability; Investor Composition; Governing and Advisory Boards; Investment; Innovation and Invention; Institutional Investing; Value

SSRN

November 2021
Article

Panel Experiments and Dynamic Causal Effects: A Finite Population Perspective

By: Iavor Bojinov, Ashesh Rambachan and Neil Shephard

In panel experiments, we randomly assign units to different interventions, measuring their outcomes, and repeating the procedure in several periods. Using the potential outcomes framework, we define finite population dynamic causal effects that capture the relative... View Details

Keywords: Panel Data; Dynamic Causal Effects; Potential Outcomes; Finite Population; Nonparametric; Mathematical Methods

November 2021
Article

The Effects of Retirement on Sense of Purpose in Life: Crisis or Opportunity?

By: Ayse Yemiscigil, Nattavudh Powdthavee and Ashley V. Whillans

Does retirement lead to an existential crisis or present an opportunity to experience a renewed sense of purpose in life? Prior research has documented a negative association between retirement and sense of purpose in life, suggesting that retirement could lead people... View Details

Keywords: Aging; Meaning; Socioeconomic Status; Life Experiences; Retirement; Well-being

Purchase

2021
Article

Don't Get It or Don't Spread It: Comparing Self-interested versus Prosocial Motivations for COVID-19 Prevention Behaviors

By: Jillian J. Jordan, Erez Yoeli and David Rand

COVID-19 prevention behaviors may be seen as self-interested or prosocial. Using American samples from MTurk and Prolific (total n = 6,850), we investigated which framing is more effective—and motivation is stronger—for fostering prevention behavior intentions. We... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Prevention; Prosocial Motivation; Health Pandemics; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives

October 2021
Article

Board Design and Governance Failures at Peer Firms

By: Shelby Gai, J. Yo-Jud Cheng and Andy Wu

Our study introduces board committees as a crucial determinant of board actions. We examine how directors who structurally link different board committees—referred to as multi-committee directors (MCDs)—explain why some board actions are merely symbolic while others... View Details

Keywords: Board Committees; Board Monitoring; New Director Nomination; Peer Financial Restatements; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Governance; Performance Effectiveness

2021
Working Paper

The Luck of the Draw: The Causal Effect of Physicians on Birth Outcomes

By: Arlen Guarin, Christian Posso, Estefania Saravia and Jorge Tamayo

Identifying the effect of physicians’ skills on health outcomes is a challenging task due to the nonrandom sorting between physicians and hospitals. We overcome this challenge by exploiting a Colombian government program that randomly assigned 2,126 physicians to 618... View Details

Keywords: Physicians' Health Skills; Health Birth Outcomes; Birthing Outcomes; Experimental Evidence; Health Care and Treatment; Competency and Skills; Outcome or Result; Health Industry; Colombia

Article

Measuring the Scientific Effectiveness of Contact Tracing: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

By: Thiemo Fetzer and Thomas Graeber

Contact tracing has for decades been a cornerstone of the public health approach to epidemics, including Ebola, severe acute respiratory syndrome, and now COVID-19. It has not yet been possible, however, to causally assess the method’s effectiveness using a randomized... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Contact Tracing; Public Health; Infectious Diseases; Health Pandemics

2021
Working Paper

Going to Extremes: Crucibles, Multiple Sensitive Periods, and Career Progression

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Sunasir Dutta, Hise O. Gibson and Eric Lin

We study the effects of crucible experiences along multiple sensitive periods on career progression. While prior literature has hinted that individuals can be imprinted during multiple sensitive periods, not just during the early career, there has been scant attention... View Details

Keywords: Jobs and Positions; Personal Development and Career; Management Skills; Human Capital

2021
Working Paper

Multiple Team Membership, Turnover, and On-Time Delivery: Evidence from Construction Services

By: Hise O. Gibson, Bradely R. Staats and Ananth Raman

Firms who want to compete in dynamic markets are finding that they must build more agile operations to ensure success. One way for a firm to increase organizational agility is to allocate employees to multiple project teams, simultaneously—a practice known as multiple... View Details

Keywords: Multiple Team Membership; Turnover; Fluid Teams; Project Management; Groups and Teams; Projects; Management; Performance

July 2021
Article

Consumers—Especially Women—Avoid Buying from Firms with Higher Gender Pay Gaps

By: Tobias Schlager, Bhavya Mohan, Katherine DeCelles and Michael I. Norton

We document a unique driver of consumer behavior: the public disclosure of a firm’s gender pay gap. Four experiments provide causal evidence that when firms are revealed to have gender pay gaps, consumers are less willing to pay for their goods, a reaction driven by... View Details

Keywords: Pay Gap; Perceived Wage Fairness; Purchase Intention; Gender; Wages; Fairness; Perception; Consumer Behavior

2021
Working Paper

Dirty Money: How Banks Influence Financial Crime

By: Joseph Pacelli, Janet Gao, Jan Schneemeier and Yufeng Wu

On September 21st, 2020, a consortium of international journalists leaked nearly 2,500 suspicious activity reports (SAR) obtained from the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, exposing nearly $2 trillion of money laundering activity. The event raises important... View Details

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Crime and Corruption; Policy

SSRN

Article

Emotional Acknowledgment: How Verbalizing Others' Emotions Fosters Interpersonal Trust

By: Alisa Yu, Justin M. Berg and Julian Zlatev

People often respond to others’ emotions using verbal acknowledgment (e.g., “You seem upset”). Yet, little is known about the relational benefits and risks of acknowledging others’ emotions in the workplace. We draw upon Costly Signaling Theory to posit how emotional... View Details

Keywords: Emotion; Costly Signaling; Interpersonal Trust; Emotional Valence; Interpersonal Relationships; Empathic Accuracy; Emotions; Relationships; Trust; Interpersonal Communication

2021
Working Paper

Diversity and Performance in Entrepreneurial Teams

By: Sophie Calder-Wang, Paul A. Gompers and Kevin Huang

We study the role of diversity and performance in the entrepreneurial teams. We exploit a unique dataset of MBA students who participated in a required course to propose and start a real micro-business that allows us to examine horizontal diversity (i.e., within the... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Groups and Teams; Diversity; Performance