Publications

How does social exclusion on the basis of racial/ethnic identity affect partisanship and political attitudes? Drawing on sociological research on the group basis of partisanship and psychological theories of social identity, we contend that…

We propose a method for non-parametric statistical estimation, based on random forests (Breiman, 2001), that can be used to fit any heterogeneous parameter of interest identified as the solution to a set of local estimating equations. Following…

Consumer goods and services have psychological value that can equal or exceed their functional value. A burgeoning literature demonstrates that one source of value emerges from the capacity for products to serve as a psychological salve that…

This study examines the effect of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act) on information uncertainty in IPO firms. The JOBS Act creates a new category of issuer, the Emerging Growth Company (EGC), and exempts EGCs from several…

Understanding how human populations naturally respond to and cope with risk is important for fields ranging from psychology to public health. We used geophysical and individual-level mobile-phone data (mobile-apps, telecommunications, and Web…

Do people advocate more on behalf of their own attitudes and opinions when they feel certain or uncertain? Although considerable past research suggests that people are more likely to advocate when they feel highly certain, there also is evidence…

How likely are third parties to intervene in repeated conflicts between adversaries? Can third party intervention redirect competitive interactions toward collectively beneficial cooperation? Does mutual cooperation persist when the third party…

Active fund managers are skilled and, on average, have used their skill to generate about $3.2 million per year. Large cross-sectional differences in skill persist for as long as 10 years. Investors recognize this skill and reward it by investing…

This article aims to fill some gaps in theory and research on age trends in musical preferences in adulthood by presenting a conceptual model that describes three classes of determinants that can affect those trends. The Music Preferences in…

I investigate the effect of competition on bidder behavior and procurement cost using highway auction data from Michigan. While a bidder’s distance to a project location is important in explaining participation and bid levels, there is no…

Word embeddings are an effective tool to analyze language. They have been recently extended to model other types of data beyond text, such as items in recommendation systems. Embedding models consider the probability of a target observation (a…

Attitude data can reveal culture’s secrets, but only if analysts acknowledge and transcend two problematic forms of heterogeneity. The first, relational heterogeneity, reflects the fact that the meaning of a…

This paper was selected as a finalist for the 2014 Pierskalla award 

Currently available medication for treating many chronic diseases is often effective only for a subgroup of patients, and biomarkers…

Firms often finance their inventory through debt and subsequently sell it to generate profits and service the debt. Pricing of products is consequently driven by inventory and debt servicing considerations. We show that limited liability under…

This paper investigates the effect of a change in informational environment of borrowers on the organizational design of bank lending. We use micro-data from a large multinational bank and exploit the sudden introduction of a credit registry, an…

The financial system is meant to facilitate efficient allocation of resources, helping people and businesses fund, invest, save, and manage risks. This system is rife with conflicts of interests. Reckless practices, uncontrolled by market forces…