Publications

We consider the strategic timing of information releases in a dynamic disclosure model. Because investors don’t know whether or when the firm is informed, the firm will not necessarily disclose immediately. We show that bad market news can…

In this paper, we propose a new tractable framework for dealing with linear dynamical systems affected by uncertainty, applicable to multistage robust optimization and stochastic programming. We introduce a hierarchy of near-optimal…

For members of a customer loyalty program that allows them to redeem something when they accumulate a certain number of points, they should be particularly concerned about two things: how far they have gone in the program (i.e., the number of…

Executive compensation figures are not what they seem. Executive pay packages contain a diverse mix of incentives whose ultimate value is often quite different from their expected value. Why don’t companies clearly differentiate between expected…

Personnel economics is a field that grew out of business education and the need to provide aspiring managers with methods for increasing firm productivity. Most of the literature focuses on compensation and management practices that affect…

I present a theory of optimal multilateral trade agreements with public political shocks. I first show that forbearance - where one country withholds retaliation when its trading partner receives a shock - is a feature of an optimal agreement.…

We discuss how regression discontinuity designs arise naturally in settings where firms target marketing activity at consumers, and we illustrate how this aspect may be exploited for econometric inference of causal effects of marketing effort.…

Tariff bindings and administered protection are two characteristics of the WTO that are little understood. Tariff bindings place a ceiling on tariffs that is not always reached, while administered protection ensures that all sectors have access…

Policymaking is hard. Policymakers typically have imperfect information about which policies produce which outcomes, and they are left with little choice but to fumble their way through the policy space via a trial-and-error process. This raises…

The failure to align the incentives of self-interested groups in favor of beneficial reform is often considered a major cause of persistent underdevelopment around the world. However, much less is known about strategies that have been successful…

Consumer preferences are often influenced by the distinctiveness of the options involved, but do needs for distinctiveness display motivational reward properties? Four studies suggest that they do. Activating needs for distinctiveness impacts the…

Hewlett-Packard has faced numerous leadership and strategic changes over the last twelve years. It has also been involved in more than its fair share of controversies. Are these signs of governance failure at the board level?

Motivated by recent cartel practices, a stable collusive agreement is characterized when firms’ prices and quantities are private information. Conditions are derived whereby an equilibrium exists in which firms truthfully report their sales and…

We argue that some powerful CEOs induce boards to shift the weight on performance measures toward the better performing measures, thereby rigging incentive pay. A simple model formalizes this intuition and gives an explicit structural…

In service industries with congestion effects, two very different contractual structures are commonly observed, depending on whether or not firms choose to offer a guaranteed service level. We analyze the impact of these choices on market…

Five studies show that gift recipients are more appreciative of gifts they explicitly request than those they do not. In contrast, gift givers assume that both solicited and unsolicited gifts will be equally appreciated. At the root of this…

This paper explores the connection between three important threads of economic research offering different approaches to studying the dynamics of an industry with heterogeneous firms. Finite models of the form pioneered by Ericson and Pakes…

Recent experience suggests that many CEOs and directors of failed companies are able to obtain or retain directorships at other companies after their departure. Should this be a concern for shareholders?

In this paper, we estimate the effect of the tax preference for health insurance on health care spending using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys from 1996–2005. We use the fact that Social Security taxes are only levied on earnings…