Publications

We study the subgame perfect equilibria of two player stochastic games with perfect monitoring and geometric discounting. A novel algorithm is developed for calculating the discounted payoffs that can be attained in equilibrium. This algorithm…

There are many studies where researchers are interested in estimating average treatment effects and are willing to rely on the unconfoundedness assumption, which requires that treatment assignment is as good as random conditional on pre-treatment…

We develop a model of advertising markets in an environment where consumers may switch (or “multi-home”) across publishers. Consumer switching generates inefficiency in the process of matching advertisers to consumers, because advertisers may not…

This paper examines the approaches accounting researchers adopt to draw causal inferences using observational (or nonexperimental) data. The vast majority of accounting research papers draw causal inferences notwithstanding the well-known…

User reviews aggregate word of mouth and often greatly enhance consumers’ ability to estimate product quality. Consumers decide for themselves whether and how to incorporate user reviews with other sources when evaluating options (e.g., a small…

Presidential candidates purchase advertising based on each state’s potential to tip the election. The structure of the Electoral College concentrates spending in battleground states, such that a majority of voters are ignored. We estimate an…

Institutional investors pay considerable attention to the quality of a company’s governance. Unfortunately, it is difficult for outside observers to reliably gauge governance quality. Oftentimes, poor governance manifests itself only after…

Institutional investors pay considerable attention to the quality of a company’s governance. Unfortunately, it is difficult for outside observers to reliably gauge governance quality. Oftentimes, poor governance manifests itself only after…

Keller Williams is one of the most successful real estate franchises in the world. The leaders of the company attribute its growth in large part to a cultural model that emphasizes profit sharing, interdependence, and success through the efforts…

Most state and local governments in the United States offer retirement benefits to their employees in the form of guaranteed pensions. To fund these promises, the governments contribute taxpayer money to public systems. Even under states’ own…

We show that the allocation of failed banks in the Great Recession was likely distorted because potential acquirers of these banks were poorly capitalized. We illustrate this phenomenon within a model of auctions with budget constraints. In our…

This is part of a case series. In spring 2012, Jordi Alves was facing some tough decisions. A year earlier, after a process that had lasted longer than expected, he had successfully raised the first search fund in Spain. He had then dedicated a…

The litmus test for an effective compensation program is whether it provides “pay for performance.” While the concept of pay for performance is simple, its implementation is not. In particular, boards must consider not only whether a compensation…

Although the legal profession has become much more diverse in recent decades, observed attainment still varies with a lawyer’s race (Gorman and Kay, 2010; Payne-Pikus, Hagan, and Nelson, 2010). Black lawyers, in particular, experience higher…

This Research Spotlight provides a summary of the research literature on whether companies with diverse boards (in terms of background, gender, or ethnicity) exhibit better performance and governance quality than companies without diverse boards…

We empirically investigate the effect of uncertainty on corporate hiring. Using novel data from the labor market for MBA graduates, we show that uncertainty regarding how well job candidates fit with a firm’s industry hinders hiring, and that…

Observed contracts in the real world are often very simple, which partly reflects the constraints faced by contracting firms in making the contracts more complex. In this article, the authors focus on one such rigidity: the constraints faced by…

Keller Williams is one of the most successful real estate franchises in the world. The leaders of the company attribute its growth in large part to a cultural model that emphasizes profit sharing, interdependence, and success through the efforts…

This paper analyzes and computes the equilibria of economies with large numbers of heterogeneous agents who have different asset trading technologies, preferences and beliefs. We illustrate the value of our method by using it to evaluate the…