Publications

The failure to find fundamentals that co-move with exchange rates or forecasting models with even mild predictive power – facts broadly referred to as “exchange rate disconnect” – stands among the most disappointing, but robust, facts in all of…

This paper studies the strategic interaction between a monopolistic seller of an information product and a set of potential buyers that compete in a downstream market. Our analysis illustrates that the nature and intensity of competition among…

Random forests are a powerful method for non-parametric regression, but are limited in their ability to fit smooth signals, and can show poor predictive performance in the presence of strong, smooth effects. Taking the perspective of random…

This case is a setting to discuss “loan to own” investment strategy that is often pursued by distressed investors. The aftermath of the 2007 financial crisis left many companies with poor liquidity and limited ability to obtain credit. One of…

Using Census microdata on multi-state firms and their organizational forms, we estimate the impact of state taxes on business activity. For C corporations, employment and the number of establishments have short-run corporate tax elasticities of -…

We analyze test design and certification standards when an uninformed seller has the option to generate and disclose costly information regarding asset quality. We characterize equilibria by a minimum principle: the test and disclosure policy are…

Fixing the investment horizon, the returns to currency carry trades decrease as the maturity of the foreign bonds increases. Across developed countries, the local currency term premia, which increase with the maturity of the bonds, offset the…

We nonparametrically estimate spillovers of properties financed by the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) onto neighborhood residents by developing a new difference-in-differences style estimator. LIHTC development revitalizes low-income…

Mortgage brokers acting as expert advisors for households often receive commission payments from lenders. This paper empirically analyzes the effects on welfare and market structure of regulations restricting this form of broker compensation.…

Where the state is weak, traditional authorities often control the local provision of land, justice, and public goods. These authorities are criticized for ruling in an undemocratic and unaccountable fashion, and are typically quite…

This study examines how an increase in tick size affects algorithmic trading (AT), fundamental information acquisition (FIA), and the price discovery process around earnings announcements (EAs). Leveraging the SEC’s randomized “Tick Size Pilot”…

Using a large sample of business groups from more than 100 countries around the world, we show that group information matters for parent and subsidiary default prediction. Group firms may support each other when in financial distress. Potential…

While polls show progressive economic policies are popular, progressive candidates typically lose elections in the U.S. One explanation for this progressive paradox is that the opponents of progressive candidates often win through “symbolic…

We explore spatial price discrimination in the context of a ride-sharing platform that serves a network of locations. Riders are heterogeneous in terms of their destination preferences and their willingness to pay for receiving service. Drivers…

Facing imminent disruption, many large, established firms have embraced innovation as a way to develop new growth businesses. To succeed in the face of disruptive change requires established firms to master three distinct disciplines: ideation,…

Concerns about the dissemination of spurious results have led to calls for pre-analysis plans (PAPs) to avoid ex-post “p-hacking.” But often the conceptual hypotheses being tested do not imply the level of specificity required for a PAP. In this…

Submitted to Operations Research

Motivated by drug design, we consider the best-arm identification problem in generalized linear bandits. More specifically, we assume each arm has a vector of covariates, there is an unknown vector…

Women continue to be underrepresented in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields. As such, there has been an increased interest in interventions to reduce bias against, and increase inclusion of, women in STEM. In this…

Blockchain technology provides decentralized consensus and potentially enlarges the contracting space through smart contracts. Meanwhile, generating decentralized consensus entails distributing information that necessarily alters the…

We study the dynamic mechanism design problem of a seller who repeatedly auctions independent items over a discrete time horizon to buyers who face a cumulative budget constraint. A driving motivation behind our model is the emergence of real-…