Publications

The contextual bandit literature has traditionally focused on algorithms that address the exploration–exploitation tradeoff. In particular, greedy algorithms that exploit current estimates without any exploration may be suboptimal in general.…

The Affordable Care Act substantially increased the share of farmworkers with medical insurance, but it had little effect on employer-provided benefits, including health care insurance. Eligible workers with pre-existing health conditions…

When valuing a firm, investors must assess not only its expected future cash flows but also the systematic risk inherent in these cash flows. In this paper, we model the process by which investors may learn about firms’ betas from earnings and…

Emergency Department (ED) crowding is a major public health challenge since it can seriously impact patient outcomes; and accurate prediction of patient flow in EDs is essential for improving operational efficiency and quality of care. We present…

How to identify the students and employees most likely to achieve is a challenge in every field. American academic and lay theories alike highlight the importance of passion for strong achievement. Based on a Western independent model of…

We develop a theory that links the U.S. dollar’s valuation in FX markets to foreign investors’ demand for U.S. safe assets. When the convenience yield that foreign investors derive from holding U.S. safe assets increases, the U.S. dollar…

Recent years have witnessed a growing trend of stakeholder issues becoming prominent in discussions of corporate governance. One source of this pressure comes from an unexpected constituent: the company’s own employee base. In this Closer Look,…

We use administrative data from Medicare to document the massive consolidation of primary care physicians over the last decade and its impact on patient healthcare utilization. We first document that primary care organizations have consolidated…

The rise of centralized mining pools for risk sharing does not necessarily undermine the decentralization required for blockchains: because of miners’ cross-pool diversification and pool managers’ endogenous fee setting, larger pools better…

People often respond to others’ emotions using verbal acknowledgment (e.g., “You seem upset”). Yet, little is known about the relational benefits and risks of acknowledging others’ emotions in the workplace. We draw upon Costly Signaling Theory…

Financial wealth inequality and long-term real interest rates track each other closely over the post-war period. Faced with lower returns on financial wealth, households with high levels of financial wealth must increase savings to afford the…

Since the early 1980s, the composition of U.S. public firms has progressively shifted toward less profitable firms with high growth potential (Fama and French, 2004). We estimate a dynamic corporate finance model to quantify the role of this…

We combine U.S. Census data with SEC enforcement actions to examine employees’ outcomes, such as wages and turnover, before, during, and after periods of fraudulent financial reporting. We find that fraud firms’ employees lose about 50…

Agricultural innovation can help farmers improve their productivity, reduce their environmental impact, and address the challenges associated with ever-changing soil, weather, and market conditions. Promoting innovation often requires…

For decades now, venture capitalists have played a crucial role in the economy by financing high-growth start-ups. While the companies they’ve backed—Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and more—are constantly in the headlines, very little is…

Both the market and the regulator have incomplete information regarding the products’ characteristics, but non-governmental organizations or activists often have expertise or motivation to investigate and acquire more information. Negative…

Individuals face non-linear budget constraints in myriad situations. We test a fundamental assumption of economic analysis in such settings: that individuals display stable preferences when facing linear and non-linear incentives. We use a…

Many applied decision-making problems have a dynamic component: The policymaker needs not only to choose whom to treat, but also when to start which treatment. For example, a medical doctor may choose between postponing treatment (watchful…

We use granular data covering regulated (brokerage-financed) and unregulated (shadow-financed) margin trading during the 2015 market turmoil in China to provide the first systematic analysis of margin investors’ characteristics, leverage…

We analyze the effects of partner tenure and mandatory rotation on audit quality, pricing, and production for a large cross-section of U.S. public firms during 2008–2014. On average, we find no evidence that audit quality declines over the tenure…