• September 2025
• Article

This paper evaluates a low-cost, customized soil nutrient management advisory service in India. As a methodological contribution, we examine whether and in which settings satellite measurements may be effective at estimating both agricultural yields and treatment effects. The intervention improves self-reported fertilizer management practices, though not enough to measurably affect yields. Satellite measurements calibrated using OLS produce more precise point estimates than farmer-reported data, suggesting power gains. However, linear models, common in the literature, likely produce biased estimates. We propose an alternative procedure, using two-stage least squares. In settings without attrition, this approach obtains lower statistical power than self-reported yields; in settings with differential attrition, it may substantially increase power. We include a “cookbook'' and code that should allow other researchers to use remote sensing for yield estimation and program evaluation.

• June 2025
• Case

Nico Oprée, a fourth-generation (G4) member of his family’s heavy manufacturing business, found himself reflecting on how the firm would navigate a deepening shareholder conflict. While the second generation (G2) had managed the business in harmony, dynamics shifted dramatically by the third generation (G3). Beginning in 2019, sentiments toward the sitting CEO became increasingly divided, eventually culminating in a rift: four G3 shareholders backed replacing the CEO with Nico’s father, while two opposed the change and supported the incumbent. Though Nico’s father ultimately took over as CEO, the underlying family tensions remained unresolved—prompting the involvement of lawyers. The family now faced a critical decision: Should they hire an external CEO, sell the business entirely, or continue operating as they were? At stake was not only the future of the business but also the integrity of family relationships. Did the expansion of the family branches in G3—where cousins and siblings might find themselves at odds—further complicate the path forward?

• 2025
• Working Paper

This paper examines the role of heterogeneous investor beliefs in explaining stock market puzzles. Using survey data, we show that individual investors and investment professionals, such as equity analysts and strategists, form distinct beliefs. These groups rely on different information when forming expectations, often hold opposing views – with a 47% correlation in return expectations – and their disagreement is associated with elevated trading volume. This belief heterogeneity proves important for understanding stock market puzzles: jointly, investor beliefs account for 74% of stock price variation and 34% of 3-year future return variation, with the beliefs of both individual investors and investment professionals having large independent explanatory power. We show that a heterogeneous-investor model, in which some investors overreact to past fundamentals and others extrapolate past returns, can explain three key features of financial markets: (i) the belief dynamics and heterogeneity observed in surveys, (ii) excess stock price volatility, and (iii) return predictability.