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.
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Conservation by Lending
This project analyzes how a principal can motivate an agent to conserve rather than exploit a depletable resource. This dynamic problem is relevant for tropical deforestation as well as for other environmental problems. It is shown that the…
The Zero-Beta Rate
We use equity returns to construct a time-varying measure of the interest rate that we call the zero-beta rate: the expected return of a stock portfolio orthogonal to the stochastic discount factor. The zero-beta rate is high and volatile. In…
Breaking Down Information Inequality: Evidence from a Field Experiment in the Technology Industry
The under-representation of women in the technology industry has long been recognized as a concern, and the provision of gender-specific information on job search platforms has emerged as a potential solution. In this research, we study how…
ESG Assurance in the United States
We provide the first, large sample evidence on third-party verification of firms’ environmental and social metrics in ESG reports (“ESG assurance”) in the United States. Focusing on S&P 500 firms from 2010-2020, we document a striking…
Exposure to the Views of Opposing Others with Latent Cognitive Differences Results in Social Influence — But Only When Those Differences Remain Obscured
Cognitive differences can catalyze social learning through the process of one-to-one social influence. Yet the learning benefits of exposure to the ideas of cognitively dissimilar others often fail to materialize. Why do cognitive differences…
Internalizing Peer Firm Proprietary Costs: Evidence from Supply Chain Relations
We examine whether the proprietary costs of economically linked peers influence focal firms’ merger and acquisition (M&A) decisions, which often involve extensive transfers of proprietary information across merging entities. Using data on…
Targeting, Personalization, and Engagement in an Agricultural Advisory Service
ICT is increasingly used to deliver customized information in developing countries. We examine whether individually targeting the timing of automated voice calls meaningfully increases engagement in an agricultural advisory service. We define,…
What Gets Measured Gets Managed: Investment and the Cost of Capital
We study the impact of government-led incentive systems by examining a staggered reform in the Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE) performance evaluation policy. To improve capital allocative efficiency, starting in 2010, regulators evaluating…
Decomposing Changes in the Gender Wage Gap over Worker Careers
A large literature in labor economics seeks to decompose observed gender wage gaps (GWGs) into different sources, including portions explained by cross-gender differences in education, occupation, and experience. This paper provides new methods…
Digital Traffic, Financial Performance, and Stock Valuation
[Preparing for third round review at The Accounting Review.]
We examine the economic implications of digital traffic.
The Heterogeneous Earnings Impact of Job Loss Across Workers, Establishments, and Markets
Using generalized random forests and rich Swedish administrative data, we show that the earnings effects of job displacement due to establishment closures are extremely heterogeneous across workers, establishments, and markets. The decile of…
The Impact of Money in Politics on Labor and Capital: Evidence from Citizens United v. FEC
We examine whether corporate money in politics benefits or hurts labor using the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United, which rendered bans on political election spending unconstitutional. In difference-in-difference analyses, affected states…
Torch-Choice: A PyTorch Package for Large-Scale Choice Modelling with Python
The torch-choice is an open-source library for flexible, fast choice modeling with Python and PyTorch. torch-choice provides a ChoiceDataset data structure to manage databases flexibly and memory-efficiently. The paper demonstrates constructing a…
Contingent Trade Agreements (R&R, Economic Journal)
How can trade motivate environmental conservation? I develop a model that combines trade-specific investments (e.g., deforestation) with environmental externalities. Traditional trade agreements raise investments and thus deforestation.…
How Much Do Public Employees Value Defined Benefit versus Defined Contribution Retirement Benefits?
We survey public employees across the United States about their preferences regarding retirement plan options, and in particular at what employer contribution rate public employees would agree to switch to a defined contribution (DC) plan on a…
Trade and Trees
International trade and tropical deforestation interact in multiple ways. This paper first presents a dynamic model whereby the South (S) depletes to export the extracted units (timber) or the produce (beef) from land available after…
An Economic Model of Consensus on Distributed Ledgers
The designs of many new blockchains are inspired by the Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) problem. While traditional BFT protocols assume most system nodes behave honestly, we recognize that blockchains are deployed in environments where nodes are…
Corporate Social Responsibility through Shareholder Governance
New approaches to corporate purpose have emerged in recent years that hold out the promise of addressing concerns about corporate social responsibility (CSR) through shareholder governance, rather than in spite of it, by reconceptualizing…
Zoning for Profits: How Public Finance Shapes Land Supply in China
Public finance and real estate are uniquely intertwined in China, where local governments also serve as monopolist sellers of land. We shed new light on how land sale decisions and land prices depend on local governments’ financing objectives.…
Market Re-Design of Framework Agreements in Chile Reduces Government Procurement Spending
Framework agreements (FAs) are procurement mechanisms used in private and public organizations by which a central procurement agency selects an assortment of products, typically through auctions, and then affiliated organizations can purchase…