Publications

Keller Williams is one of the most successful real estate franchises in the world. The leaders of the company attribute its growth in large part to a cultural model that emphasizes profit sharing, interdependence, and success through the efforts…

Most state and local governments in the United States offer retirement benefits to their employees in the form of guaranteed pensions. To fund these promises, the governments contribute taxpayer money to public systems. Even under states’ own…

We show that the allocation of failed banks in the Great Recession was likely distorted because potential acquirers of these banks were poorly capitalized. We illustrate this phenomenon within a model of auctions with budget constraints. In our…

This is part of a case series. In spring 2012, Jordi Alves was facing some tough decisions. A year earlier, after a process that had lasted longer than expected, he had successfully raised the first search fund in Spain. He had then dedicated a…

The litmus test for an effective compensation program is whether it provides “pay for performance.” While the concept of pay for performance is simple, its implementation is not. In particular, boards must consider not only whether a compensation…

Although the legal profession has become much more diverse in recent decades, observed attainment still varies with a lawyer’s race (Gorman and Kay, 2010; Payne-Pikus, Hagan, and Nelson, 2010). Black lawyers, in particular, experience higher…

This Research Spotlight provides a summary of the research literature on whether companies with diverse boards (in terms of background, gender, or ethnicity) exhibit better performance and governance quality than companies without diverse boards…

We empirically investigate the effect of uncertainty on corporate hiring. Using novel data from the labor market for MBA graduates, we show that uncertainty regarding how well job candidates fit with a firm’s industry hinders hiring, and that…

Observed contracts in the real world are often very simple, which partly reflects the constraints faced by contracting firms in making the contracts more complex. In this article, the authors focus on one such rigidity: the constraints faced by…

Keller Williams is one of the most successful real estate franchises in the world. The leaders of the company attribute its growth in large part to a cultural model that emphasizes profit sharing, interdependence, and success through the efforts…

This paper analyzes and computes the equilibria of economies with large numbers of heterogeneous agents who have different asset trading technologies, preferences and beliefs. We illustrate the value of our method by using it to evaluate the…

Marriage can substitute for formal business contracts, especially in environments that lack a well-established system of contract or corporate law. In such settings, marriage can facilitate the efficient organization of labor and capital. In this…

Does American political representation work as predicted by theory? On average, political candidates diverge considerably in their ideological positioning, but do they diverge less on issues of particular salience to their local constituents? We…

Decades of past research point to the downside of evaluative inconsistency (i.e., ambivalence), suggesting that it is an unpleasant state that can result in negative affect. Consequently, people are often motivated to resolve their ambivalence in…

Performance-based promotion schemes in administrative hierarchies have limitations. Chinese provincial leaders, despite facing strong career concerns, make different policy decisions depending on their career backgrounds. Provincial party…

A key question about achievement motivation is how to maintain it over time and in the face of stress and adversity. The present research examines how a motivational process triggered by a social-psychological intervention propagates benefits…

We propose a synthesis of two lines of sociological research on boundary spanning in cultural production and consumption. One, research on cultural omnivorousness, analyzes choice by heterogeneous audiences facing an array of crisp cultural…

We present a rational theory of reform fatigue. At each instant a politician chooses to divide effort between reforms and the status quo, and this choice is modeled as a two-armed bandit problem. Reforms are expected to yield a higher rate of…

Representation on pension fund boards by state officials—often determined by statute decades past—is negatively related to the performance of private equity investments made by the pension fund, despite state officials’ relatively strong…