Working Papers

The welfare effects of vertical integration are ambiguous. Cost efficiencies and the elimination of double marginalization may offset increases in market power and incentives to raise rivals’ costs. To study the effects of vertical…

We take issue with claims that the funding mix of banks, which makes them fragile and crisis-prone, is efficient because it reflects special liquidity benefits of bank debt. Even aside from neglecting the systemic damage to the economy that banks…

This chapter presents a selective review of a literature in marketing that analyzes diffusion and pricing over the product life-cycle. I primarily focus on empirical work, and on papers that deal with the dynamics of pricing over time. I discuss…

Conventional wisdom suggests that firms can benefit from coordinating pricing and production decisions. One way firms can coordinate such decisions is through private communication. However, private communication between competing firms is…

This paper presents five facts on the behavior of U.S. banks between 2007 and 2015 that impose useful restrictions on the formulation of a bank problem. (1) Market to book leverage ratio diverged significantly during the crisis. (2) Book values…

When multiple firms are simultaneously running experiments on a platform, the treatment effects for one firm may depend on the experimentation policies of others. This paper presents a set of causal estimands that are relevant to such an…

We discuss the relevance of the recent Machine Learning (ML) literature for economics and econometrics. First we discuss the differences in goals, methods and settings between the ML literature and the traditional econometrics and statistics…

The “freemium” model for digital goods involves selling a base version of the product for free, and making premium product features available to users only on payment. The success of the model is predicated on the ability to profitably convert…

Candidate debates have a rich history and remain integral to contemporary campaign strategy. There is, however, little evidence that they affect the behavior of voters or politicians. The scarcity of political information in the developing world…

This article summarizes the Opportunity Zone incentive in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act by providing descriptive statistics on the selected zones, outlining considerations for investors, and using data on the New Markets Tax Credit to inform…

Why are some people more successful than others at fitting in culturally over time? Prior research has offered divergent and seemingly inconsistent answers to this question. One perspective has highlighted the importance of shared values in…

We administer a newly-designed survey to a large panel of retail investors who have substantial wealth invested in financial markets. The survey elicits beliefs that are crucial for macroeconomics and finance, and matches respondents with…

This study investigates whether investors are willing to trade-off wealth for societal benefits. We take advantage of unique institutional features of the municipal securities market to provide insight into this question. Since 2013, over $23…

We apply causal forests to a dataset derived from the National Study of Learning Mindsets, and consider resulting practical and conceptual challenges. In particular, we discuss how causal forests use estimated propensity scores to be more…

We examine the selection of peer groups that boards of directors use when setting the level of CEO compensation. This choice is controversial because it is difficult to ascertain whether peer groups are selected to (i) attract and retain top…

How do U.S. companies respond to incentives intended to encourage domestic manufacturing? I study the Domestic Production Activities Deduction (DPAD), which was enacted in the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 and was the third largest U.S.…

We examine the relation between tax net operating loss (NOL) carryforwards and corporate cash holdings. Corporate taxation of passive income increases the cost of holding liquid assets (“cash”), but NOLs can shield that income from tax. We test…

We present a new perspective on the Synthetic Control (SC) method as a weighted least squares regression estimator with time fixed effects and unit weights. This perspective suggests a generalization with two way (both unit and time) fixed…

We examine how U.S. individuals respond to regulation intended to reduce offshore tax evasion. Specifically, we study investment responses to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which requires foreign financial institutions to report…

We introduce a novel measure of segregation, experienced isolation, that captures individuals’ exposure to diverse others in the places they visit over the course of their days. Using novel Global Positioning System (GPS) data collected…