Publications

We study the nature of sovereign credit risk using an extensive set of sovereign CDS data. We find that the majority of sovereign credit risk can be linked to global factors. A single principal component accounts for 64 percent of the variation…

What explains the enormous differences in incomes across countries? This paper returns to two old ideas: linkages and complementarity. First, linkages between firms through intermediate goods deliver a multiplier similar to the one associated…

The behavior and determinants of market-to-revenue ratios in public and private capital markets is examined. Three samples are analyzed: (1) all publicly traded stocks listed at some time on the New York Stock Exchange/American Stock Exchange/…

We calculate the present value of state pension liabilities under existing policies and separately under policy changes that would affect pension payouts. If promised payments are viewed as default free, then it is appropriate to use…

In 2011, David Sokol, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway’s energy subsidiary, purchased $10 million of Lubrizol stock days before recommending that Berkshire Hathaway acquire the firm. Did Sokol’s actions reflect a broad governance failure for the firm?…

A fast fashion system combines quick response production capabilities with enhanced product design capabilities to both design “hot” products that capture the latest consumer trends and exploit minimal production lead times to match supply with…

Our research studies what MBAs in the 21st century care about during their job searches. We update the MBA job preference literature by using adaptive conjoint analysis to calibrate the relative importance of a variety of job factors found…

Four studies demonstrated that increasing a desirable commodity’s scarcity (i.e., decreasing its supply or increasing demand for it) can inhibit people from claiming the commodity for themselves, thereby delaying its consumption. In Study 1,…

This research investigates the effect of perceived evaluation duration—that is, the perceived time or speed with which one generates an evaluation—on attitude certainty. Integrating diverse findings from past research, the authors propose that…

Agency attribution is a hallmark of mind perception; thus, diminished attributions of agency may disrupt social–cognition processes typically elicited by human targets. The current studies examine the effect of perceivers’ sexist attitudes on…

What do sociologists mean when they describe culture as founded on “shared understandings”? Sharing an understanding does not necessarily imply having the same opinions but rather agreeing on the structures of relevance and opposition that make…

Recent sociological theory and research highlights food, drink, and restaurants as culturally meaningful and related to social identity. An implication of this view holds that the prevalence of corporate chain restaurants affects the…

Three of the most fundamental changes in US corporations since the early 1970s have been (1) the increased importance of organizational capital in production, (2) the increase in managerial income inequality and pay-performance…

This study models the interaction between a sell-side analyst and risk-averse investors. It derives an analyst’s optimal earnings forecast and investors’ optimal trading decisions in a setting where the analyst’s payoff depends on the trading…

This paper examines when information asymmetry among investors affects the cost of capital in excess of standard risk factors. When equity markets are perfectly competitive, information asymmetry has no separate effect on the cost of capital.…

We propose that hierarchy is such a prevalent form of social organization because it is functionally adaptive and enhances a group’s chances of survival and success. We identify five ways in which hierarchy facilitates organizational success.…

The authors propose a Web-based adaptive self-explicated approach for multiattribute preference measurement (conjoint analysis) with a large number (ten or more) of attributes. The proposed approach overcomes some of the limitations of previous…

When faced with a regulatory constraint, firms can either comply, bribe the regulator to get around the rule, or lobby the government to relax it. We analyze this choice, and its consequences, in a simple dynamic model In equilibrium, when the…

We study the impact of mandatory calorie posting on consumers’ purchase decisions using detailed data from Starbucks. We find that average calories per transaction fall by 6 percent. The effect is almost entirely related to changes in…