Publications

For policymakers, economics is a useful tool in the development and evaluation of public policy. And like many sciences, economics is evolving to become more interdisciplinary in its approach. Today, economic theory is often used in conjunction…

We extend the Clark-Scarf serial multi-echelon inventory model to include procuring production inputs under short-term take-or-pay contracts at one or more stages. In each period, each such stage has the option to order/process at two different…

Motivated by the recent opening of a public stool bank that enables fecal microbiota transplantation for the treatment of Clostridium difficile infection, we develop and optimize a mathematical model that tracks the flow of stools from donation…

A new class of online services allows Internet media sites to direct users from articles they are currently reading to other content they may be interested in. This process creates a “browsing path” along which there is potential for repeated…

This paper explores firms’ strategic options when their investments are subject to the threat of government expropriation. I develop a simple hold-up model of political risk. In the model, a firm decides whether to invest and then the government…

Social psychologists have long demonstrated that people are stereotyped on the basis of race. Researchers have conducted extensive experimental studies on the negative stereotypes associated with Black Americans in particular. Across 4 studies,…

Implicit theories have great potential relevance to shape theory and research in consumer psychology. Beliefs about the stability or malleability of human characteristics can affect the behaviors of companies and customers alike, including the…

We present the task of predicting individual well-being, as measured by a life satisfaction scale, through the language people use on social media. Well-being, which encompasses much more than emotion and mood, is linked with good mental and…

We present the results of a large field experiment on setting reserve prices in auctions for online advertisements, guided by the theory of optimal auction design suitably adapted to the sponsored search setting. Consistent with the theory,…

The failure of financial regulation can, and did, cause significant harm to the economy. I argue that confusion about the nature of the problems in the financial system and about the trade-offs associated with key regulations has prevented…

This Research Spotlight provides a summary of the academic literature on how shareholder voting on executive compensation plans influences executive pay. It reviews the evidence of:

• The impact of “vote no” campaigns
• The…

This paper presents a theory of the market for activism where citizens fund activists, campaigning activists pressure firms to change their practices, and firms self-regulate to forestall or mitigate campaigns. Activists have leverage because…

Early identification of individuals at risk for chronic diseases is of significant clinical value. Early detection provides the opportunity to slow the pace of a condition, and thus help individuals to improve or maintain their quality of…

We study trading behavior and the properties of prices in informationally complex markets. Our model is based on the single-period version of the linear-normal framework of Kyle (1985). We allow for essentially arbitrary correlations among the…

In knowledge-based economies, many businesses enterprises defy traditional industry boundaries. In this study, we evaluate six “big data” approaches to peer firm identifications and show that some, but not all, “wisdom-of-crowd” techniques…

When do voters win? We derive conditions under which a democracy will produce policies that favor the voter over special interests in a setting where politicians can be influenced by contributions from special interests, and are also motivated by…

Psychological certainty plays a key role in shaping people’s thoughts, judgments, attitudes, and behaviors. This article provides an overview of recent work on attitude certainty, which has been the subject of considerable attention in…

No abstract available.

The development of predictive models in healthcare settings has been growing; one such area is the prediction of patient arrivals to the Emergency Department (ED). The general premise behind these works is that such models may be used to help…