Publications

We examine the link between corporate governance, managerial incentives, and corporate tax avoidance. Similar to other investment opportunities that involve risky expected cash flows, unresolved agency problems may lead managers to engage in more…

With malls, franchise strips, and big-box retailers increasingly dotting the landscape, many are concerned that U.S. middle-class jobs in manufacturing are being replaced by minimum-wage jobs in retail. Retail jobs have spread, whereas…

Many lament that weak accountability and poor governance impede economic development in Africa. Politicians rely on ethnic allegiances that deliver the vote irrespective of performance, dampening electoral incentives. Giving voters…

This paper studies the effect of performance feedback on tournament outcomes, when a possibly dishonest principal may manipulate the agents’ expectations to stimulate their effort. Under plausible circumstances, an increase in the principal’s…

In the fall of 2014, RR Donnelley, Equilar, and the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University surveyed 64 asset managers and owners with a combined $17 trillion in assets to understand how institutional investors use the…

This paper studies two disclosure regimes when a firm with superior private information must rely on a strategic certifier to disclose credibly its prospects. In the ex ante (ex post) disclosure regime, the firm must decide on whether to hire the…

A rising share of employees now regularly engage in working from home, but there are concerns this can lead to “shirking from home.” We report the results of a WFH experiment at Ctrip, a 16,000-employee, NASDAQ-listed Chinese travel agency. Call…

This research examines how individuals’ relationship with others sharing the pursuit of the same individual goal may change from the early to later stages of the pursuit. In one qualitative field study, one lab study, and a 7-day field experiment…

This paper examines the economic consequences of institutional investors outsourcing research and voting decisions in public company elections to proxy advisory firms. We investigate the implications of these decisions in the context of…

In an attempt to explain the stability of hierarchy, we focus on the perspective of the powerless and how a subjective sense of dependence leads them to imbue the system and its authorities with legitimacy. In Study 1, we found in a nationally…

Statistical default models, widely used to assess default risk, fail to account for a change in the relations between different variables resulting from an underlying change in agent behavior. We demonstrate this phenomenon using data on…

Institutional investors are highly dissatisfied with the quality of information that they receive about corporate governance policies and practices in the annual proxy. Across the board, they want proxies to be shorter, more concise, more candid…

Using a large multi-country multi-industry sample of over 158,000 companies, the early-stage company sector is documented to have sizable destruction of revenues and jobs and as well as sizable gross creation of revenues and jobs. The…

Statistical default models, widely used to assess default risk, fail to account for a change in the relations between different variables resulting from an underlying change in agent behavior. We demonstrate this phenomenon using data on…

While new biologics have revolutionized the treatment of age-related macular degeneration—the leading cause of severe vision loss among older adults—these new drugs have also raised concerns over the economic impact of medical innovation. The two…

We estimate how households trade off immediate costs and uncertain future benefits that occur in the very long run, 100 or more years away. We exploit a unique feature of housing markets in the United Kingdom and Singapore, where residential…

This article studies the interplay of U.S. primary and general elections. I examine how the nomination of an extremist changes general-election outcomes and legislative behavior in the U.S. House, 1980–2010, using a regression discontinuity…

Judging others’ personalities is an essential skill in successful social living, as personality is a key driver behind people’s interactions, behaviors, and emotions. Although accurate personality judgments stem from social-cognitive skills,…

Which budgetary institutions result in efficient provision of public goods? We analyze a model with two parties bargaining over the allocation to a public good each period. Parties place different values on the public good, and these…