These papers are working drafts of research which often appear in final form in academic journals. The published versions may differ from the working versions provided here.
SSRN Research Paper Series
The Social Science Research Network’s Research Paper Series includes working papers produced by Stanford GSB the Rock Center.
You may search for authors and topics and download copies of the work there.
Rational and Irrational Belief in the Hot Hand: Evidence from “Jeopardy!”
We use a play-by-play dataset from the game show “Jeopardy!” to study the hot hand phenomenon, whereby people appear to exhibit “hot” states of elevated performance in domains with repeat trials. We first demonstrate that Jeopardy contestants…
Beyond Black-Box: Structuring Landing Page Recommender Systems Using Predicted Intents
Modern recommender systems rely on black-box machine learning models to predict consumer choices. However, because these models do not explicitly represent the underlying data-generating process (DGP), they often struggle to generalize beyond…
Consumer Memory and Competitive Interference: The Case of Auto Insurance Advertising
Insights from psychology suggest competitive interference: when a firm advertises, consumers are less likely to think of its competitor, benefiting the advertiser by keeping it top of mind and suppressing competitor recall. We empirically…
Human Flourishing and the Future of Leadership in Leading Humans
Does Access to Human Coaches Lead To More Weight Loss than with AI Coaches Alone?
Obesity and excess weight are major global health challenges. A number of technological solutions, including mobile apps, have been developed to help people lose weight. Many such applications provide access to human coaches who help consumers…
Generative AI in Equilibrium: Evidence from a Creative Goods Marketplace
Artists and policy makers are concerned that Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) may lead to disappearance of non-GenAI content. In this paper we study the implications of GenAI for the production and consumption of creative goods; such as…
Beauty as a Goal: Creating Harmony Between Health and Taste
Individuals frequently perceive a tradeoff between health and taste, leading to poor dietary choices. This research identifies a novel pathway to healthier eating by harmonizing seemingly conflicting goals: seeking beauty in food. Across seven…
Sustainability and Strategic Differentiation in Unregulated Consumer Goods Markets
Motivated by the disconnect between regulatory discussions and industry reports on voluntary sustainability investments, we examine the market equilibrium for sustainable products in the absence of regulation, focusing on firms’ strategic…
The Blessing of Reasoning: LLM-Based Contrastive Explanations in Black-Box Recommender Systems
Modern recommender systems use machine learning (ML) models to predict consumer preferences based on consumption history. Although these “black-box” models achieve impressive predictive performance, they often suffer from a lack of transparency…
Identity and Economic Incentives
We develop a theoretical model and conduct field experiments to distinguish the impact of identity on shaping beliefs from its direct effect on preferences in individual investment choices. Our model suggests that identity distorts individuals’…
Contract Design in Influencer Marketing
In influencer marketing, the differing incentives of advertisers and influencers necessitate a delicate balance between control and creativity. Investigating this trade-off, we explore the impact of contractual constraints on advertiser outcomes…
Creating a Beautiful Life
In this paper, I share a few insights on our remarkable field to explore what creates a beautiful life. I conceptualize that the idea of a “beautiful life” is defined not by transient moments of happiness, but by a profound sense of meaning and…
Fintech Failure: Examining B2B and B2C Solutions for Two-Sided Platform Adoption
Across emerging economies, physical cash is the ubiquitous means of transaction for retailers and their consumers. Despite the widespread availability, affordability and benefits of Fintech solutions for digital payments in these regions, there…
Novelty in Content Creation: Experimental Results Using Image Recognition on a Large Social Network
Social networks utilize award recognition and front pages to motivate user content creation, facilitate consumer discovery of content, and provide attention and recognition to the best content. Past research shows that such attention and…
Sophisticated Consumers with Inertia: Long-Term Implications from a Large-Scale Field Experiment
Consumer inertia, the tendency to remain inactive, is a robust and well-documented phenomenon. However, if consumers are aware of their future inertia they can act to mitigate its effects on their outcomes. Using a large-scale randomized field…
Does Emotional Matching Between Video Ads and Content Lead to Better Engagement: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment
Modern digital advertising platforms allow ads to be targeted in a variety of ways, and generally aim to match the ad being shown with either the user or the content being shown. In this study, we examine the effect of matching in emotional…
How Does A Failure in a Retailer’s Mobile App Impact Purchases in Its Online and Offline Channels?
How does a failure in a retailer’s mobile app impact shoppers’ purchases in its online (website and app) and offline (brick-and-mortar store) channels? Our main hypothesis is that an app failure has a negative effect on offline purchases and no…
Investigating Complementarities in Subscription Software Usage Using Advertising Experiments
In this study, we causally examine complementarity in usage across a set of related software products from a multi-product firm. Digital contexts are characterized by little price variation, bundled pricing plans, and infrequent purchase or…
Cross-Border Knowledge Transfer and Performance in Emerging Economic Regions: the Case of Japanese International Joint Ventures in China
As emerging economic regions (EERs) play a significant role in global economies, managers of multinationals have become increasingly aware of the importance of relevant international expansion in these regions. Facing potential market…
Financial Resources Impact the Relationship between Meaning and Happiness
Do financial resources relate to how important meaning is for one’s happiness? Across three large-scale datasets spanning over 500,000 individuals across 123 countries, we examined the relationship between meaning and happiness for individuals…