Publications

SSRN

01 Sep 2005
News

Get Ready for Saudi Oil Shock

Photo Courtesy MATTHEW R. SIMMONS In his new book, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), Matthew Simmons (MBA ’67) sounds an alarm about a finite resource that he believes is... View Details

Keywords: Lewis I. Rice; Petroleum and Coal Products Manufacturing; Petroleum and Coal Products Manufacturing; Petroleum and Coal Products Manufacturing; Petroleum and Coal Products Manufacturing

October 2023
Article

Laboratory Safety and Research Productivity

By: Alberto Galasso, Hong Luo and Brooklynn Zhu

Are laboratory safety practices a tax on scientific productivity? We examine this question by exploiting the substantial increase in safety regulations at the University of California following the shocking accidental death of a research assistant in 2008.... View Details

Keywords: Economics Of Science; Risk Perception; Safety Regulations; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Working Conditions; Safety; Performance Productivity

2023
Working Paper

Estimating Productivity in the Presence of Spillovers: Firm-Level Evidence from the U.S. Production Network

By: Ebehi Iyoha

This paper examines the extent to which productivity gains are transmitted across U.S. firms through buyer-supplier relationships. Many empirical studies measure firm-to-firm spillovers using firm-level productivity estimates derived from control function approaches.... View Details

Keywords: Supply and Industry; Partners and Partnerships; Production

February 2021
Article

Do Household Wealth Shocks Affect Productivity? Evidence from Innovative Workers During the Great Recession

By: S. Bernstein, T. McQuade and R. Townsend

We investigate how the deterioration of household balance sheets affects worker productivity, and, in turn, economic downturns. Specifically, we compare the output of innovative workers who experienced differential declines in housing wealth during the financial crisis... View Details

Keywords: Great Recession; Household; Financial Condition; System Shocks; Employees; Performance Productivity

2016
Chapter

Networks and the Macroeconomy: An Empirical Exploration

By: Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit and William R. Kerr

The propagation of macroeconomic shocks through input-output and geographic networks can be a powerful driver of macroeconomic fluctuations. We first exposit that in the presence of Cobb-Douglas production functions and consumer preferences, there is a specific pattern... View Details

Keywords: Economic Fluctuations; Geographic Collocation; Input-output Linkages; Propagation; Shocks; Networks; Fluctuation; System Shocks; Macroeconomics

2015
Working Paper

Networks and the Macroeconomy: An Empirical Exploration

By: Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit and William Kerr

The propagation of macroeconomic shocks through input-output and geographic networks can be a powerful driver of macroeconomic fluctuations. We first exposit that in the presence of Cobb-Douglas production functions and consumer preferences there is a specific pattern... View Details

Keywords: Economic Fluctuations; Geographic Collocation; Input-output Linkages; Propagation; Shocks; Networks; Fluctuation; System Shocks; Macroeconomics

SSRN

When people want more new drugs, firms are happy to invest in ideas that cost more. And as they run out of "low hanging fruit" while demand keeps growing, R&D costs will naturally grow.

Abstract: We examine trends in the productivity of the... View Details

19 Dec 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Find and Replace: R&D Investment Following the Erosion of Existing Products

Keywords: by Joshua Krieger, Xuelin Li, and Richard T. Thakor

23 Mar 2020
Research & Ideas

Product Disasters Can Be Fertile Ground for Innovation

submitted to the FDA. Comparing the new patent applications for safety-related features to other features of radiation diagnostic devices, they found an increase of over 100 percent in the five years after the shock relative to before.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health; Medical Devices & Supplies

Summer 2020
Article

Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?: The COVID-19 Pandemic Should Be a Wake-up Call for Managers and Prompt Them to Consider Actions That Will Improve Their Resilience to Future Shocks

By: Willy C. Shih

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the complex interdependencies of globalized supply chains. While these global multistage production networks had spread during a relatively benign environment of falling trade barriers and increasing interdependencies among countries,... View Details

Keywords: Supply Chains; Pandemic; Resilience; Supply Chain Management; Supply Chain; Global Range; Health Pandemics; Disruption; System Shocks; Crisis Management; Manufacturing Industry; United States; Asia; Europe; China

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August, 2024
Article

Absenteeism, Productivity, and Relational Contracts Inside the Firm

By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Jean-François Gauthier, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge Tamayo

We study relational contracts among managers using a unique dataset that tracks transfers of workers across teams in Indian ready-made garment factories. We focus on how relational contracts help managers cope with worker absenteeism shocks, which are frequent, often... View Details

Keywords: Implicit Contracts; Productivity; Misallocation; Absenteeism; Supervisors; Readymade Garments; Performance Productivity; Employees; Relationships; Fashion Industry; India

August 2018 (Revised August 2018)
Case

The De Beers Group: Launching Lightbox Jewelry for Lab-Grown Diamonds

By: Benjamin C. Esty

In May 2018, the De Beers Group shocked the diamond industry when it announced it was launching a new fashion jewelry brand of laboratory-grown (synthetic) diamonds. The reaction was swift as people sought to understand the company’s motivations: was it a “huge gamble”... View Details

Educators

Purchase

2019
Working Paper

The Effect of Payment Choices on Online Retail: Evidence from the 2016 Indian Demonetization

By: Chaithanya Bandi, Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe and Zhiji Xu

The Indian banknote demonetization in 2016 was one of the most significant international events of that year. Overnight, 86% of Indian currency in circulation was declared invalid unless exchanged for new bills. The sudden and unexpected demonetization constituted a... View Details

Keywords: Cash On Delivery; Online Retail; Product Returns; Payment Methods; Digitization; Emerging Markets; Currency; Internet and the Web; Demand and Consumers; Retail Industry; India

30 Jan 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Credit Supply Shocks, Network Effects, and the Real Economy

Keywords: by Laura Alfaro, Manuel García, and Enrique Moral-Benito

29 Jan 2009
Working Paper Summaries

An Exploration of the Japanese Slowdown during the 1990s

Keywords: by Diego A. Comin

2011
Chapter

An Exploration of the Japanese Slowdown during the 1990s

By: Diego A. Comin

Why was the 1990s a lost decade for Japan? How is it possible that the Japanese economy stagnated for a decade if none of the shocks that arguably hit the economy seemed to have persisted for much more than three years or so? In this paper I show that the endogenous... View Details

Keywords: Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Performance Productivity; Mathematical Methods; Research and Development; Technology Adoption; Japan

2007
Other Unpublished Work

Implementing Technology

By: Diego Comin and Bart Hobijn

We introduce a tractable model of endogenous growth in which the returns to innovation are determined by the technology adoption decisions of the users of new technologies. Technology adoption involves an implementation investment that determines the initial... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Investment; Investment Return; Innovation and Invention; Growth and Development Strategy; Performance Productivity; Technology Adoption

December 2023
Article

What Can Stockouts Tell Us About Inflation? Evidence from Online Micro Data

By: Alberto Cavallo and Oleksiy Kryvtsov

We use a detailed micro dataset on product availability and stockouts to construct a direct high-frequency measure of consumer product shortages during the 2020-2022 pandemic. We document a widespread multi-fold rise in stockouts in nearly all sectors early in the... View Details

Keywords: Prices; Stockouts; Inventories; Supply Disruptions; COVID-19 Pandemic; Supply Chain; Product; Demand and Consumers