Publications

Laws, regulations, and enforcement have controlled drug counterfeiting the United States, but there is growing evidence of organized groups profiting from drug counterfeiting. The practice of inference, using evidence rather than opening outer…

This article describes an optimization process used to schedule the First Division of Argentina’s professional volleyball league. The teams in the league are grouped into couples, and matches are held on Thursdays and Saturdays. In each pair of…

It is a standard practice in regression analyses to allow for clustering in the error covariance matrix if the explanatory variable of interest varies at a more aggregate level (e.g., the state level) than the units of observation (e.g.,…

Here we propose an account of the link between exchange structure and the emergence of solidarity capable of accounting for the conflicting evidence social scientists have found regarding the relationship between social exchange structures and…

We propose a redesign of sovereign Credit Default Swaps (CDS). Under our proposal, a notional CDS position of €100 can be settled by the delivery of whatever package of instruments a sovereign gives in exchange for legacy bonds with a face value…

We study rollover risk and collateral value in a dynamic asset pricing model with endogenous debt financing by extending the framework of Geanakoplos (2009) with a generic binomial tree and time-varying heterogeneous beliefs. Optimistic borrowers…

We estimate linguistic-based classification models of deceptive discussions during quarterly earnings conference calls. Using data on subsequent financial restatements and a set of criteria to identify severity of accounting problems, we label…

This article studies a dynamic agency problem in which a risk-averse agent can save privately. In the optimal contract, (i) cash compensations exhibit downward rigidity to failures; (ii) permanent pay raises occur when the agent’s historical…

Relying on comprehensive measures of financial knowledge, we provide evidence of a strong positive association between financial literacy and net worth, even after controlling for many determinants of wealth. We discuss two channels through which…

During the last quarter of 2008, financial losses in state pension funds varied from 12 percent to 68 percent of the revenue generated by the state government. We quantify a sovereign default channel in the state municipal market by examining how…

Hires occur for two reasons - to grow a business and to replace those who have left (churn). Churn is an important part of employment dynamics, allowing workers to move to their most productive use. We present evidence on churn from the Job…

Actions that do not have as their goal the advancement or protection of one’s material interests are often seen as illegitimate. Four studies suggested that moral values can legitimate action in the absence of material interest. The more…

Over the past few years, nations around the world have reeled from a series of catastrophic failures of institutional trustworthiness. As a consequence of these failures, public confidence and trust in such institutions have plummeted, leaving…

Legal precedent establishes juvenile offenders as inherently less culpable than adult offenders and thus protects juveniles from the most severe of punishments. But how fragile might these protections be? In the present study, simply bringing to…

This article examines the diffusion of protest tactics among social movement organizations (SMOs) through their collaboration in protest groups. Using a longitudinal data set of SMO protest activity between 1960 and 1995, the authors adapt novel…

This paper provides a mathematical foundation for independent random matching of a large population, as widely used in the economics literature. We consider both static and dynamic systems with random mutation, partial matching arising from…

The article focuses on the need for reforms in the U.S. renewable power industry. It states that recessions in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and the significant drop in U.S. natural gas prices have diminished…

In this paper we conduct an empirical investigation of a large-scale combinatorial auction (CA)—the Chilean auction for school meals in which the government procures half a billion dollars worth of meal services every year. Our empirical study is…

The sensitivity of stock options’ payoff to return volatility, or vega, provides risk-averse CEOs with an incentive to increase their firms’…