Projects for the Dedicated Research Fellow Track

When you apply to the Research Fellows Program, you can select the dedicated track and indicate your interest in one or more of the following positions.

Projects are organized by their primary field of study, but projects are often multidisciplinary. We encourage you to look at projects within your chosen field as well as in related fields.

Accounting

Drivers and Effects of Corporate Disclosures

Status: Closed

Faculty: Jinhwan Kim, Suzie Noh

Jinhwan Kim and Suzie Noh, assistant professors of accounting, are recruiting a research fellow to work on projects that examine how corporate disclosures relate to innovation, consumption, and/or ESG. Kim and Noh study whether and by how much corporate disclosures affect markets’ expectations as well as firms’ own or peer firms’ innovation and strategic investments.

Requirements
A bachelor’s degree or higher, a strong quantitative background, excellent computer programming skills (e.g., SAS, Stata, Python, or R), and a serious interest in pursuing research in accounting. A background in finance/accounting/economics is helpful but not necessary. Previous research experience is a plus.

Studies in Corporate Reporting, Auditing, and Investment

Status: Closed

Faculty: Maureen McNichols, Ron Kasznik

Maureen McNichols, The Marriner S. Eccles Professor of Public and Private Management and Accounting, and Ron Kasznik, The Paul L. and Phyllis Wattis Professor of Management, are recruiting a research fellow to work on projects related to financial reporting and auditing. The aim is to shed light on how accounting and auditing institutions influence the decisions of various financial statement users, including firms, investors, employees, boards of directors, regulators and financial analysts. Current projects include, for example, understanding how cultural norms influence audit quality, the factors that influence diversity in audit professionals, and how investors respond to the disclosure of ESG information. Other projects investigate the extent to which corporate culture affects mergers and acquisition decisions and outcomes, and how firms' disclosure choices are influenced by equity undervaluation. Results from the research are of policy relevance and of interest to general media and the research fellow will be asked to also help in producing publicly available statistics and research summaries that help communicate the research to the broader public.

McNichols’ research examines financial reporting and its role in providing information to investors. Her recent work focuses on the role of earnings announcements in informing investors, on earnings management, and on the role of auditors in financial reporting quality. The research on earnings announcements documents a striking increase in stock price revision in response to earnings announcements and explores reasons for this relation. The research on earnings management examines companies’ incentives and methods for managing earnings, detection of managed earnings, and the consequences of earnings management for investors’ decisions. The research on auditors examines their role in detecting and reporting misreporting, and the factors that contribute to audit quality, including regulation, auditor incentives and ability.

Kasznik’s research focuses on examining the strategic use of accounting and financial information by market participants, particularly firm managers. Within this broad area, he focuses primarily on issues related to the provision of financial and non-financial information, corporate disclosure strategy, earnings management, disclosure and reporting effects of employee stock options, and mergers and acquisitions.

Requirements
A bachelor’s degree or its equivalent, a strong quantitative background, excellent computer programming skills, including strong ability in statistical programs (preferably SAS and/or R), and a serious interest in pursuing research in accounting. Some prior coursework in accounting is needed but students majoring in economics, finance, and computer science are also welcome to apply. Previous research experience is a plus.

Because of its strong belief in the value of diversity (broadly defined) in the pursuit of its educational mission, Stanford GSB strongly encourages applications from women and underrepresented minorities, as well as from others whose backgrounds and experience would bring additional dimensions to the educational experience.

Economic Analysis & Policy

Urban Economics and Inequality

Status: Open

Faculty: Rebecca Diamond

Rebecca Diamond, Class of 1988 Professor of Economics, is recruiting three research fellows who will work on projects studying the causes and consequences of local labor and housing market policies on wages, migration, financial well-being, and inequality more broadly. The research fellows will work will large, admin data sets, and micro geography information to track households and firms. Current topics being studied include: public housing demolition and revitalization, the role of the housing market in racial wealth inequality, and heterogeneous welfare effects of zoning reform.

Requirements
A bachelor’s degree or its equivalent, econometrics training in causal inference, knowledge of Stata, SQL, R or other programming experience. Economics major not required.

To apply, please send the following materials as soon as possible (admission is rolling up until April 1, 2023) to Professor Diamond's faculty assistant, Josephine Yan at joyan@stanford.edu, with the subject line “Professor Diamond Dedicated Research Fellow”.

The required materials are:

• Cover letter describing your interest in the position, your familiarity with programming languages (e.g., Stata, R, MATLAB, Python, and any others), your prior experience as a research assistant and/or with independent research projects.

• CV or resume

• An up-to-date transcript (unofficial or official)

• Two letters of recommendation sent directly by the letter writers.

Short-listed applicants will be contacted to complete a technical exercise and a remote interview.

Economic Effects of Environmental and Tax Policy

Status: Closed

Faculty: Juan Carlos Suarez Serrato

Juan Carlos Suarez Serrato, Professor of Economics and José E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones SUPERCHARGED Initiative Faculty Fellow for 2022–23, is recruiting two research fellows who will work on projects studying the effects of environmental regulations and tax policy on workers and businesses. The research fellows will work with large administrative databases. The research fellows will collaborate on projects studying how environmental regulations impact plant closures and the operations of multi-unit firms; how tax policies that incentivize capital investment impact workers' careers; and how multinational corporations respond to international tax policy. Due to the nature of the data, U.S. citizenship or eligibility to work in Federal Statistical Research Data Centers is required.

Requirements
A bachelor’s degree or its equivalent, econometrics training in causal inference, knowledge of Stata, SQL, R or other programming experience. Economics major not required.

To apply, please send the following materials by November 15, 2022 to Professor Suarez Serrato's faculty assistant, Naomie Kankolongo Ngoba at ngb2812@stanford.edu, with the subject line “Professor Suarez Serrato's Dedicated Research Fellow”.

The required materials are:

• Cover letter describing your interest in the position, your familiarity with programming languages (e.g., Stata, R, MATLAB, Python, and any others), your prior experience as a research assistant and/or with independent research projects.

• CV or resume

• An up-to-date transcript (unofficial or official).

• The names and contact details of two reference letter writers.

Short-listed applicants will be contacted in late November/early December to complete a technical exercise and a remote interview.

Finance

The Effects of Fiscal News on the Bond Market

Status: Open

Faculty: Hanno Lustig

Hanno Lustig, The Mizuho Financial Group Professor of Finance, is recruiting a Research Fellow to work on a project seeking to identify the effect of fiscal news on the valuation of the government's bond portfolio. Professor Lustig aims to use textual analysis to identify fiscal shocks and use high-frequency analysis to document the impact of these fiscal shocks on bond yields and ultimately on the valuation of government debt.

Requirements
Bachelor's degree or equivalent. Strong coding skills in Python, R, and Matlab, or equivalent language. Interested in learning about textual analysis.

To apply, please send the following materials by February 1, 2023 to Professor Lustig's faculty assistant, Naomie Kankolongo Ngoba at ngb2812@stanford.edu, with the subject line “Professor Lustig Dedicated Research Fellow”.

The required materials are:

• Cover letter describing your interest in the position, your familiarity with programming languages (e.g., Stata, R, MATLAB, Python, and any others), your prior experience as a research assistant and/or with independent research projects.

• CV or resume

• An up-to-date transcript (unofficial or official).

• The names and contact details of two reference letter writers.

Short-listed applicants will be contacted in February to complete a technical exercise and a remote interview.

Global Capital Allocation Project

Status: Closed

Faculty: Matteo Maggiori, Antonio Coppola

Matteo Maggiori, The Moghadam Family Professor and Professor of Finance, and Antonio Coppola, who will join the GSB as as Assistant Professor of Finance in June 2023, are recruiting two pre-doctoral research fellows to be part of the Global Capital Allocation Project (GCAP) Lab. A substantial component of the work focuses on big-data applications in international macroeconomics and finance. The GCAP Lab mixes data, economic theory, and analytics to understand how capital moves around the world with the aim of improving international economic policy. Current projects include, for example: (i) mapping how global firms finance themselves through foreign subsidiaries, often shell companies in tax havens; (ii) understanding China’s rising presence in global financial markets; and (iii) understanding how capital is allocated in emerging economies.

Results from the research are of policy relevance and of interests to general media (such as The Economist or Wall Street Journal). While the research fellows’ focus is on learning and producing academic research, the fellows also have the opportunity to interface with policy institutions, and to produce publicly available statistics and graphical interfaces that help communicate the research to the broader public.

The research fellows will be dedicated to Professors Maggiori and Coppola but will also work closely and directly with all members of the lab, including other lab co-directors such as Jesse Schreger at Columbia Business School, co-authors on academic papers, PhD students, and other research assistants. This is a vibrant community with plenty of interaction and the expectation of working collaboratively in smaller groups and then present research progress to the broader group.

Results from the research are of policy relevance and of interest to general media, such The Economist or Wall Street Journal, and in addition to pure academic research you will be also involved in producing publicly available statistics and research summaries that help communicate the research to the broader public.

Requirements
A bachelor’s degree or its equivalent, a strong quantitative background, excellent computer programming skills, and a serious interest in pursuing research in economics. A background in economics is helpful but not necessary. Previous research experience is a plus. Candidates from groups underrepresented in economics are especially encouraged to apply.

Three Centuries of International Capital Flows

Status: Closed

Faculty: Chenzi Xu, Antonio Coppola

Chenzi Xu, Assistant Professor of Finance, and Antonio Coppola, who will join the GSB as as Assistant Professor of Finance in June 2023, are recruiting a research fellow to work on a projects examining the role of international capital flows, particularly within a historical context. Foreign capital flows are an important source of funding for emerging markets with less-developed domestic financial markets, but foreign flows often come with risks: through them, countries can "import" credit market fluctuations from the global financial center. While foreign flows have been recognized as a source of disruption in recent financial crises such as the Asian crises of the 1990s and the global financial crisis in 2008, they also have a long historical precedent. A primary goal of this project is to construct a comprehensive database of granular short-term capital flows around the world to answer a variety of questions related to international finance and macroeconomics.

The research fellow will focus on learning and producing academic research. They will work closely with Professors Xu and Coppola but will also interact regularly with other members of the Stanford community, including co-authors on academic papers, PhD students, and other research assistants. This is a vibrant community with plenty of interaction and intellectual stimulation.

Requirements
A bachelor’s degree or its equivalent, a strong quantitative background, excellent computer programming skills, and a serious interest in pursuing research in economics. Previous research assistance experience and a background in economics are helpful, but not necessary. Attention to detail and communication skills are very strongly valued. Candidates from groups underrepresented in economics are especially encouraged to apply.

Marketing

Consumer Trust, Misinformation, and Motivation

Status: Open

Faculty: Yu Ding

Yu Ding, Assistant Professor of Marketing, is recruiting a Research Fellow to work on projects related to in consumer trust, misinformation, debiasing, and social influence.

The research fellow will be dedicated to Professor Ding and interact frequently with him and Professor Szu-chi Huang on their joint research projects such as consumer motivation, goal pursuit, social impact and new technology. As part of the research process, the fellow will also interact with Professor Ding and Professor Huang’s co-authors, visiting scholars, PhD students, and other pre-doctoral students involved in the research projects at Stanford or other universities.

The position requires strong knowledge of research methods (statistics and coding skills), excellent communication and writing skills, and most importantly, a strong interest and motivation to research in behavioral science using various methodologies. Applicants must be extremely conscientious, self-motivated, organized, and must be able to work independently and respond to/manage day-to-day email communication promptly and efficiently.

Requirements
A bachelor’s degree or its equivalent, and have a serious interest in pursuing research in behavioral research. As numerous projects will focus on using machine-learning tools (e.g., Natural Language Processing) to complement experimentation methods to study misinformation and large company datasets about technology adoption, experience in experimental methods and coding is a plus.

The application deadline for full consideration is February 1, 2023. Applications submitted will be considered on a rolling basis.

To apply, please email Professor Ding at yudinglab@gmail.com with subject: “Ding and Huang Pre-Doc application” and attach the following:

1) Cover letter (in the email body) describing your interest in the position, your prior experience as a research assistant and/or with independent research projects, background/training in experimental methods and computer science, and skills in statistics and coding. Preferably no more than 3 paragraphs.

2) Your CV

3) An up to date transcript (unofficial or official)

4) The names and contact details of two references (letters are optional).

Short-listed applicants will be contacted on a rolling basis, starting from January 2023, for interviews.

Organizational Behavior

Machine-Assisted Organization Design

Status: Closed

Faculty: Julien Clement

Julien Clement, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior, is recruiting a Research Fellow to work on a set of projects related to organization design. Broadly speaking, these projects investigate how teams and organizations can be designed in a way that helps their members perform well in a variety of tasks.

Clement is especially interested in investigating how machine learning can help design high-performing teams by making predictions and recommendations about team structures such as hierarchy, role division, and workflow design. The position will provide opportunities to work on both early-stage and more advanced projects, and to develop skills in a variety of methodologies such as econometric analysis, agent-based modeling, and experimental design.

Requirements
A bachelor’s degree or its equivalent, a strong quantitative background, excellent computer programming skills, and a serious interest in pursuing research on organizations. Previous research experience is a plus.

Political Economy

Decentralized Governance, Beneficial Technology, and Designing for Legitimacy

Status: Closed

Faculty: Andrew Hall

Andrew Hall, Professor of Political Economy, is recruiting a Research Fellow to study the design of online platforms and communities, decentralized governance, and web3.

The work will focus on how to design and build the online platforms, communities, and organizations of the future to make them more socially legitimate and more productive. We will seek to understand the needs of various stakeholder groups—like users, creators, sellers, developers, employees, and customers—and study whether and how they might take part in collective governance, making some of the decisions that shape how organizations operate, leading to more inclusive and more aligned outcomes.

This is particularly important for making progress on critical governance questions that will determine the future of the internet and technology, like:

• Who should decide how algorithms boost or down-rank different kinds of content from different sources?

• Who should decide the rules governing what people are allowed to say, to sell, to transact, what kinds of apps are allowed, etc. on platforms? Who should enforce violations of these rules? Who should adjudicate disputes over these enforcement decisions?

• How can groups of people online decide how to spend shared funds and how to manage jointly owned assets?

• Who should have the power to set or change fee structures that divide revenue between sellers and a platform, developers and a platform, creators and a platform, etc?

While there is considerable enthusiasm around the idea of decentralizing the governance of many types of organizations, it is not clear whether or how it can work in practice. It is hard to get many people to want to participate in democratic processes online, it is hard to get people informed about complex issues, and it is hard to align the incentives of potential voters and a platform’s workforce.

To study these challenges, we will gather data on the governance of decentralized organizations in web3, partner with organizations to implement different types of governance structures and measure outcomes, run surveys of relevant stakeholder groups, and perform other types of empirical and theoretical research—all with the goal of designing effective “constitutions” for decentralized organizations that specify who hold what powers and how collective decisions are made. The resulting research will be highly relevant to ongoing private and public sector work around how best to structure organizations and design products with social legitimacy and fairness in mind.

The pre-doctoral fellow will work closely with Professor Hall and other collaborators to read relevant literature, study various online communities, gather data, run analyses, and publish research in peer reviewed journals.

Requirements
A bachelor’s degree or its equivalent. Ideal candidates have a background in computer science and economics/political economy and have experience in econometric and statistical methods and software. Experience with smart contracts and blockchain data tools like Dune, The Graph, etc is a major plus but not strictly required. Coursework in game theory, elections, and/or political economy is also a plus.

More important than their technical skills, successful candidates will be highly conscientious, detail-oriented, and professional. Past experience outside of the academy in a real world work setting of any kind (does not need to have any relationship to academia at all) is a plus.

To apply, please send the following materials by November 15 to Professor Hall’s faculty assistant, Josephine Choki Yan at joyan@stanford.edu, with the subject line “Professor Hall Dedicated Research Fellow”.

The required materials are:

• Cover letter describing your interest in the position, your familiarity with programming languages (e.g., Stata, R, MATLAB, Python, and any others), your prior experience as a research assistant and/or with independent research projects.

• CV

• An up-to-date transcript (unofficial or official).

• The names and contact details of two reference letter writers.

Short-listed applicants will be contacted in early December to complete a technical exercise and a remote interview.

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Standard Track

Rotate between projects with different faculty each quarter based on project availability and your interest.

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Didn’t Find What You Were Looking For?

We are not currently offering dedicated positions in the Operations, Information & Technology field.

If you did not find a project within your field or another project of interest to you, you can explore the Standard Track, which follows a rotational model that allows you to gain experience across multiple fields and eventually specialize in one field of interest.