Working Papers

We study actual bidding behavior when a new auction format gets introduced into the marketplace. More specifically, we investigate this question using a novel data set on internet display ad auctions that exploits a staggered adoption by…

The availability of behavioral data on customers and advances in machine learning methods have enabled scoring and targeting of customers in a variety of domains, including pricing, advertising, recommendation and personal selling. Typically,…

I study the first modern global banking crisis that began in London in 1866 and provide causal evidence that financial sector disruptions can reshape international trade patterns for decades. Using newly collected archival loan records that link…

We find that financial reporting spurs consumer behavior. Using granular GPS data, we find that foot-traffic to firms’ commerce locations significantly increases in the days following their earnings announcements. Foot-traffic increases more for…

We develop new semiparametric methods for estimating treatment effects. We focus on a setting where the outcome distributions may be thick tailed, where treatment effects are small, where sample sizes are large and where assignment is completely…

Interest rate caps are widespread in consumer credit markets, yet there is limited evidence on their effects on market outcomes and welfare. The effects of this policy are ambiguous and depend on a trade-off between consumer protection…

Long-acting reversible contraceptives are highly effective in preventing unintended pregnancies, but take-up remains low. This paper analyzes a randomized controlled trial of interventions addressing two barriers to long-acting reversible…

We evaluate the quantitative effect of ESG divestitures on the cost of capital of affected firms. We derive a simple expression for the change in the cost of capital as a function of three inputs: (1) the fraction of socially conscious capital, (…

Empirical models play a distinctive role in the study of matching markets. They provide a quantitative framework for measuring heterogeneity in preferences for schools (Hastings et al., 2009), comparing school assignment mechanisms (…

We examine whether and how firms structure their merger and acquisition (M&A) deals to avoid scrutiny from antitrust regulators. There are approximately 40% more M&As than expected bunching just below thresholds that trigger antitrust…

We present an approach to automate the bidding and budgeting of multi-unit digital advertising campaigns. Such campaigns typically involve groups of ad-units that span multiple user segments, ad-delivery channels and media that together are meant…

Analyzing observational data from multiple sources can be useful for increasing statistical power to detect a treatment effect; however, practical constraints such as privacy considerations may restrict individual-level information sharing across…

It is well-established that the Conquest of the Americas by Europeans led to catastrophic declines in indigenous populations. However, less is known about the conditions under which indigenous communities were able to overcome the…

Banks’ reluctance to repair their balance sheets, combined with deposit insurance and regulatory forbearance in recognizing greater risks and losses, can lead to solvency problems that look like liquidity (bank-run) crises. Regulatory forbearance…

New products are the lifeblood of many sellers, who increasingly reach consumers via e-commerce platforms. Yet, search engines and e-commerce platforms have substantial difficulty exposing new products to their users on account of an information…

As governments around the world reaffirm their commitments to reduce carbon emissions at the national level, numerous global corporations have recently issued their own carbon reduction pledges. Such corporate “Net-Zero Club by 20xx”…

This paper analyzes bond convenience yields in a currency union. The intertemporal government budget constraint requires member countries’ bond convenience yields and default spreads to adjust in response to shocks to their government surpluses.…

New technologies have enabled firms to elicit granular behavioral data from consumers in exchange for lower prices and better experiences. This data can mitigate asymmetric information and moral hazard, but it may also increase firms’ market…

Overlap in baseline covariates between treated and control groups, also known as positivity or common support, is a common assumption in observational causal inference. Assessing this assumption is often ad hoc, however, and can give misleading…

We propose a new estimator for the average causal effects of a binary treatment with panel data in settings with general treatment patterns. Our approach augments the twoway-fixed-effects specification with the unit-specific weights that arise…