Publications

We study the necessity of predictive information in a class of queueing admission control problems, where a system manager is allowed to divert incoming jobs up to a fixed rate, in order to minimize the queueing delay experienced by the admitted…

This Research Spotlight provides a summary of the academic literature on how staggered boards impact shareholder value by insulating management from the pressures of capital markets. It reviews the evidence of:

• Staggered board…

From 1980 to 2000, the rise in the U.S. college-high school graduate wage gap coincided with increased geographic sorting as college graduates concentrated in high wage, high rent cities. This paper estimates a structural spatial equilibrium…

The federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for solar installations is scheduled to step-down from 30% to 10% at the beginning of 2017 for corporate investors. This raises the question whether solar PV will be cost competitive post 2016 in the U.S.…

In explaining the sources of cooperation and prosocial behavior, psychologists, behavioral economists, and biologists often focus on factors internal to the individual, such as altruistic motivations, other-regarding preferences, and…

We use a dataset of sell-side analysts’ scenario-based equity valuation estimates to examine whether analysts can assess the state-contingent risk surrounding a firm’s fundamental value. We find that the spread in analysts’ scenario-based…

Providing people with information about the behavior and attitudes of their peers is a strategy commonly employed by those seeking to reduce behavior deemed harmful either to individuals (e.g., high alcohol consumption) or the collective (e…

We examine the link between corporate governance, managerial incentives, and corporate tax avoidance. Similar to other investment opportunities that involve risky expected cash flows, unresolved agency problems may lead managers to engage in more…

Many lament that weak accountability and poor governance impede economic development in Africa. Politicians rely on ethnic allegiances that deliver the vote irrespective of performance, dampening electoral incentives. Giving voters information…

The English Parliament’s struggle for supremacy against monarchical dictatorship during the Civil War (1642-48) was crucial for the establishment of representative government, yet its lessons continue to be debated. I exploit novel data on…

We investigate whether the hiring relationships of candidates and political consulting firms better resembles the predictions of the “adversarial” or “allied” models of consultant‐party interaction. We find that the highest‐quality consultants…

Using a unique dataset of scenario-based investment reports, we examine whether the placement of an analyst’s valuation forecast, relative to his/her own subjective assessment of the distribution of scenario-based valuations for the covered firm…

Economic sociologists agree that economic rationality is constructed and that morality and economic interests often intersect. Yet we know little about how Americans organize their economic beliefs or assess the morality of markets. We…

Trust dilemmas arise whenever individuals perceive opportunities to benefit from engaging in trusting behavior with others, yet recognize that doing so entails the risk of exploitation. My research examines the determinants of judgment and choice…

The past decade has witnessed an explosion of interest in the partisan polarization of the American electorate. Scholarly investigation of this topic has coincided with the media’s portrayal of a polity deeply divided along partisan lines. Yet…