Publications

There appears to be a tension between trade proponents and environmental activists. This paper shows, however, how Contingent Trade Agreements (CTAs) can motivate conservation. I first analyse a standard trade model where trade-specific…

We survey a growing literature on correlated learning—that is, how information from one choice changes beliefs about others when outcomes are correlated. The core modeling innovation is to represent the unknown mapping from choices to outcomes as…

We analyze acquisitions in US power plants by using rich data on hourly productivity and thousands of ownership changes. We find a 2% average increase in efficiency for acquired plants, beginning 5 months after acquisition. Efficiency gains rise…

Significance

Economic inequality continues to widen in the United States and globally, yet the organizational processes that reproduce social stratification remain insufficiently understood. This research identifies negotiation…

People typically read the titles of content (e.g., an article or post) before deciding whether to consume it. Titles can be composed as a statement (e.g., “Green Tea Has Health Benefits”) or a question (e.g., “Does Green Tea Have Health Benefits…

There is growing interest in how large language models (LLMs) can advance social and behavioural science. Previous work has assessed LLMs’ ability to predict survey responses, but less is known about whether they can predict the outcomes of…

We analyze a fundamental dilemma and time-inconsistency problem facing climate-concerned producers of natural gas. In the short term, it is tempting to produce more to outcompete coal. When this policy is anticipated, however, investments in…

We use equity returns to construct a time-varying measure of the zero-beta interest rate: the expected return of a stock portfolio orthogonal to the stochastic discount factor. In contrast to safe rates, the zero-beta rate fits the aggregate…

Social class is more than an economic divide; it engenders distinct cultural patterns. Building on tightness-looseness theory, we identify a critical yet overlooked dimension of within-society cultural variation across social class contexts: the…

We describe patterns of licit handgun acquisitions before (January 2017–February 2020) and during (March 2020–September 2021) the COVID-19 pandemic using administrative records from California. Handgun acquisitions doubled soon after the pandemic…

Multiarmed bandit (MAB) algorithms are efficient approaches to reduce the opportunity cost of online experimentation and are used by companies to find the best product from periodically refreshed product catalogs. However, these algorithms face…

This paper provides an equilibrium model of discovery as strategic search. Both parties select search intensities where the quantity and quality of evidence uncovered are stochastic. Discovery intensity leads to both own-party costs as well as…

Introduction

Employer-sponsored health insurance covers over 60% of the U.S. population under age 65 and represents a significant expense for employers, yet employees’ views on benefit design remain understudied.

Methods

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Congenital heart defects (CHDs) affect approximately 240,000 newborns annually in India, where lifesaving surgical interventions are inaccessible and unaffordable for rural populations. The objective of this project was to identify opportunities…

Populism has been on the rise, posing a threat to liberal democracy. Existing evidence suggests that globalization, economic shocks, and concerns over cultural change increase support for populist agendas. Yet less is known about interventions…

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) marked the first time in 3 decades that material changes were made to the corporate tax code of the United States. Following the method of Auerbach and Hassett (…