Updated October 2015
SAM ASHER http://samuelasher.com [email protected] [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler DCUTLER @HARVARD.EDU 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart OHART @FAS.HARVARD.EDU 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Contact Information Department of Economics, University of Oxford Oxford OX1 3UQ, UK UK: +44 7763511365 US: +1 (413) 519 9650
Employment Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Nuffield College and Economics Department, University of Oxford (September 2013 – August 2016)
Academic Affiliations Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford (2013 – present) Research Associate, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies (2013 – present) Associate, Center for International Development, Harvard University (2013 – present) Affiliate, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi (2014 – present)
Education Harvard University, Ph.D. in Economics, 2013 Yale University, B.A. in Ethics, Politics and Economics magna cum laude, 2004
References Asim Khwaja Andrei Shleifer Sumitomo Foundation Professor of International Professor of Economics Finance and Development Department of Economics Harvard Kennedy School Harvard University Harvard University [email protected] [email protected] +1 (617) 495-5046 +1 (617) 384-7790
Professor Edward Glaeser Douglas Gollin Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics Professor of Development Economics Department of Economics Department of International Development Harvard University University of Oxford [email protected] [email protected] +1 (617) 495-0575 +44 (1865) 281832
Teaching and Research Fields Primary: Development Economics, Political Economy Secondary: Urban Economics, Economic Geography
Teaching Experience Updated October 2015
2015 Quantitative Methods (Oxford MSc in Economics for Development) 2013-2015 Development Economics I (Oxford MPhil in Economics) 2009-2011 PED-309: Development Policy Strategy (Harvard Kennedy School MPA/ID, teaching fellow for Professor Ricardo Hausmann) 2009 Econ 2390b: Development Microeconomics (Harvard graduate, teaching fellow for Professors Sendhil Mullainathan and Richard Hornbeck)
Professional Activities Referee Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Economic Development and Cultural Change, World Politics Panelist USAID Development Innovation Ventures Proposal Review Co-organizer CSAE (Development Economics) External Seminar, University of Oxford (2014-2015); IGC Workshop on Industrial Research and Data Needs in India (2015)
Presentations (including scheduled) 2015-2016 Pennsylvania State University, Harvard University, Oxford Development Workshop, Paris School of Economics, University of Oxford, Northeast University Development Conference (NEUDC), Dartmouth College 2014-2015 University of Oxford, Northeast University Development Conference (NEUDC), University of Essex, Indian Statistical Institute, Centre for Policy Research (Delhi) 2013-2014 Northeast University Development Conference (NEUDC), University of Oxford, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (India) 2012-2013 Northeast University Development Conference (NEUDC), University of Oxford, Harvard University, Planning Commission (India)
Research Grants 2015 IGC, “How do Rural Roads Affect Development? Evidence from India” (with Paul Novosad) $71,000 2014 IGC, “The Cost of Road Construction in Tanzania” (with Martina Kirchberger and Paul Novosad) $110,000 2014 IGC, Scoping Visit for Research on Roads in Tanzania (with Martina Kirchberger and Paul Novosad) $8,600 2013 Growth and Labour Markets in Low Income Countries Programme, “The Urban Geography of Entrepreneurship and Growth in India” (with Paul Novosad) $172,000 2013 Private Enterprise in Low-Income Countries, Centre for Economic Policy Research, “The Urban Geography of Entrepreneurship and Formality in Poor Countries” (with Paul Novosad) $56,000 2013 John Fell Fund (University of Oxford), “The Urban Geography of Entrepreneurship and Growth in India” $12,000 2013 OxCarre Research Grant (University of Oxford), “Mining and Politics in India” $5,000 2011 Institute for Quantitative Social Science (Harvard University), “Estimating the Impact of Politician Power on Local Economic Development in India” $2,000 2010 Real Estate Academic Initiative (Harvard University) “Property Rights and Land Use in Rural India” $7,000 2009-2013 Warburg Fund (Harvard University), 3x, $9,000
Honors and Fellowships 2012 GSAS Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Harvard University 2010-2013 Graduate Research Fellow, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University 2010-2013 Graduate Research Fellow, Center for International Development, Harvard University 2010 Graduate Research Fellow, Tobin Project Updated October 2015
2007-2009 Graduate Fellowship, Harvard University
Job Market Paper The Economic Effects of Road Construction in Rural India (with Paul Novosad) This paper investigates the economic effects of reducing transportation costs in rural areas. We construct a new, high spatial resolution household dataset to estimate the impact of a national rural road construction program in India that has built over 400,000 km of paved roads. Program rules provide exogenous variation in road assignment. We find that paved road construction to previously unconnected villages leads to a large and significant sectoral reallocation of economic activity out of agricultural cultivation. These results are driven by locations close to major cities, suggesting the importance of access to urban markets in the process of structural transformation. We provide further evidence that this exit from agriculture is concentrated among younger workers and households with low levels of land, precisely those groups we expect to have the lowest costs and highest returns to sectoral reallocation.
Other Research Papers Politics and Local Economic Growth: Evidence from India (with Paul Novosad) Does politics have an impact on local economic outcomes? Using a regression discontinuity design built around close elections from 1990-2005, we examine the local economic effects of one form of political favoritism: the benefit of having a local politician who is aligned with the party in control of government. We show that private sector employment in politically aligned constituencies grows by 1.7 percentage points more per year than in non-aligned constituencies. We find no effect on government employment or supply of public infrastructure. Stock prices show 12-15% positive cumulative abnormal returns when an aligned candidate wins the constituency where a firm is headquartered, suggesting that political alignment is a net benefit to both local labor and capital. Finally, we use international survey data to classify industries by their dependence on (i) government bureaucracy, (ii) direct transfers in the form of procurement, and (iii) external finance. We find the effect of political alignment is largest in industries that depend most on government officials, with no significant effect of dependence on credit or procurement. This suggests that the effect of alignment works through regulation. The results are consistent with a model of politicians choosing policy levers to maximize electoral gain.
Dirty Politics: Natural Resource Wealth and Politics in India (with Paul Novosad) Does extractable natural resource wealth cause adverse political outcomes? We interact global price changes with locations of mineral deposits within India to isolate exogenous variation in local resource wealth. By exploiting temporal variation with locations held constant, we remove confounding factors that vary across locations and may be correlated with the importance of natural resources. We find that natural resource wealth increases the likelihood that criminal politicians are elected to office, and increases margins of victory and incumbency advantages in local elections. We can exclude the possibility that these results are driven by higher budgets alone, as mining royalties are not distributed locally. We test three channels for the criminality effect: (i) moral hazard; (ii) adverse selection of politicians into the political system; and (iii) greater success of criminal candidates in elections. The evidence favors the third channel. We discuss potential interpretations based on changes in voter, candidate and party behavior.
Work in Progress The Impacts of Local Control over Political Institutions: Evidence from State Splitting in India (with Paul Novosad)
Local Employment Multipliers in India (with Karan Nagpal and Paul Novosad)
The Cost of Road Construction in Tanzania (with Martina Kirchberger and Paul Novosad)
Digging for Development: Economic Impacts of Mining Booms (with Paul Novosad) Updated October 2015
The Impact of Agricultural Output on Local Economic Activity in India (with Paul Novosad)
Personal Citizenship: USA Date of Birth: August 6, 1982 Languages: English (native), Spanish (proficient), Hindi (proficient)
LORENZO CASABURI http://scholar.harvard.edu/lorenzocasaburi [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Home Contact Information Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research 4118 Folsom Street John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building San Francisco, CA 94110 366 Galvez Street, Stanford, CA 94305 Cell phone: +1-781-558-7436 Office phone: +1-650-723-7236
Employment: Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), Postdoctoral Fellow, 2013-present
Education: Harvard University, Ph.D. Economics, 2013 University of Bologna, B.A. Economics cum laude, 2004 University of California Berkeley, Education Abroad Program Student, 2003-04
References: Prof. Michael Kremer Prof. Pascaline Dupas Department of Economics Department of Economics Harvard University Stanford University 1805 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA 02138 579 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305 [email protected] [email protected] +1-617-495-9145 +33-6-42-68-29-51 (visiting PSE 2015/16)
Prof. Tavneet Suri Prof. Pol Antràs Sloan School of Management Department of Economics Massachusetts Institute of Technology Harvard University 100 Main St., Cambridge, MA 02142 1805 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA 02138 [email protected] [email protected] +1-617-253-7159 +1-617-495-1236
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary field: Development Economics Secondary fields: Agricultural Economics, Political Economy, International Trade, Public Finance
Teaching Experience: Fall 2015 Development Economics (Ph.D.), Stanford, co-instructor Spring 2014, 2015 Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa (B.A.), Stanford, instructor Spring 2010 Development Economics (Ph.D.), Harvard, teaching fellow for Prof. M. Kremer Fall 2009 International Trade (B.A.), Harvard, teaching fellow for Prof. M. Melitz Fall 2004, 2006 Advanced Micro (M.A.), Bologna, teaching fellow for Prof. P. Onofri
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Lorenzo Casaburi
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2009-11 Government of Sierra Leone, Agricultural Tracking Survey, Technical Consultant 2005-06 Research Assistant to Michael Kremer and Ted Miguel, Kenya
Professional Activities: Referee: American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Journal of African Economies, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of International Economics, Journal of International Trade and Development, Journal of Public Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Routledge, World Bank Economic Review Grant Proposal Reviewer: J-PAL ATAI, Private Enterprise Development in Low Income Countries (PEDL), USAID Development Innovation Ventures (DIV)
Presentations (includes scheduled): 2015/16 Zurich, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, University of Southern California, Oxford, Yale School of Management, NEUDC, UC Santa Cruz, McGill, Stanford, CEPR/PODER Annual Symposium on Development Economics, Harvard 2014/15 NBER Summer Institute Development Economics, Barcelona GSE Summer Forum Development Economics, PACDEV, Boston University, American Economic Association Meetings, Columbia, BASIS Annual Conference, IGC Growth Week, Stanford SIEPR 2013/14 European Economic Association Meetings, World Bank, Royal Economic Society, CSAE Oxford, UC Berkeley ARE, UC Davis ARE, IPA-SME/PEDL Conference, Millennium Challenge Corporation, National Tax Association Conference, UC San Diego, IGC Growth Week, BASIS Annual Conference, Stanford, SIEPR 2012/13 Paris School of Economics, NBER Development and Organizational Economics Workshop, Stanford SIEPR, JPAL ATAI 2010-2012 NBER Africa Conference, NSF/AERC Agriculture Session
Research Grants (selected): 2015 IGC, “Liquidity Constraints, Presumptive Taxation and Tax Compliance: Experimental Evidence from Kenya” (with Dina Pomeranz) $65,000 2015 IPA-SME Initiative, Young Scholar Grant, “Taxation, Liquidity Constraints, and Firm Growth: Experimental Evidence from Kenya” $20,000 2015 Stanford Global Development and Poverty Initiative, “Presumptive Taxation, Liquidity Constraints, and Tax Compliance: Experimental Evidence from Kenya” (with John Shoven). $48,800 2014 International Growth Centre, “Credit constraints, trade credit and firm growth in Zambia” (with Jonas Hjort) $15,000 2013 Anonymous Donor, “How to reduce side-selling in agricultural contracting?” (with Rocco Macchiavello and Tristan Reed) $113,000 2013 Anonymous Donor, “Interlinking Agricultural Insurance to Contract Farming: Experimental Evidence from Western Kenya” (with Michael Kremer) $630,000 2013 USAID-BASIS, “Tailoring Contract Farming to Smallholders: Experimental Evidence on Enrollment Impact, Insurance Provision, and Communication Technologies” (with Michael Kremer, Alphonce Odondo, and John Shoven) $715,000 2013 PEDL Exploratory Grant, “Management Information Systems and Firm Performance: Experimental Evidence from a Large Agribusiness Company in Kenya” (with Michael Kremer and Sendhil Mullainathan) $75,000 2011 J-PAL ATAI, “Contract Structure and Export Quality in Sierra Leone” (with Tristan Reed and Tavneet Suri) $31,000 2010 3ie, “A Randomized Evaluation of Inventory Credit” (with Rachel Glennerster, Tavneet Suri and Sullay Kamara) $165,000 Page 2 of 4
Lorenzo Casaburi
2010 USAID Development Innovation Ventures, “A Randomized Evaluation of Inventory Credit” (with Rachel Glennerster) $230,000 2010 J-PAL ATAI, “Contract Farming, Technology Adoption and Agricultural Productivity” (with Michael Kremer and Sendhil Mullainathan) $180,000 2009 IGC, “Agriculture, Technology Adoption and Infrastructure: Evidence from Sierra Leone” (with Rachel Glennerster and Tavneet Suri) $123,000
Honors and Fellowships: 2013- JPAL/CEGA Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI) Network Member 2012 Harvard GSAS Dissertation Completion Fellowship 2010 Harvard Derek Bok Center Certificate of Distinction in Teaching 2008 Harvard Interdisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy Fellowship 2007-09 Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) Fellowship 2007-08 Harvard Sustainability Science Program Giorgio Ruffolo Fellowship 2004 Rotary Award, Best Graduate in Economics at the University of Bologna 2000-2004 University of Bologna, Collegio Superiore Fellowship
Publications: “Ghost-House Busters: The Electoral Response to a Large Anti Tax Evasion Program.” with Ugo Troiano, Quarterly Journal of Economics, forthcoming “Loyalty, Exit and Enforcement: Evidence from a Kenya Dairy Cooperative.” with Rocco Macchiavello, American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 105.5 (2015): 286-90. “Contract Farming and Agricultural Productivity in Western Kenya.” with Michael Kremer and Sendhil Mullainathan, in S. Edwards, S. Johnson, D. Weil (eds.), NBER Volume on African Economic Successes: Sustainable Growth, University of Chicago Press, forthcoming “Production in Advance versus Production to Order: The Role of Downstream Spatial Clustering and Product Differentiation” with G. Alfredo Minerva, Journal of Urban Economics, 70.1 (2011): 32- 46 “Firms’ International Status and Heterogeneity in Performance: Evidence from Italy." with Valeria Gattai and G. Alfredo Minerva, Rivista di Politica Economica, V-VI (2007): 151-187
Research Papers: “Firm and Market Response to Saving Constraints: Evidence from the Kenyan Dairy Industry” (with Rocco Macchiavello) (Job Market Paper) The paper documents how saving constraints spill over into other markets. Producers' demand for (commitment) saving devices enables trustworthy buyers to offer low frequency payments and purchase at a lower price, thus changing the nature of competition in the output market. We present a model of this interlinked saving-output market for the case of the Kenyan dairy industry. Multiple data sources, experiments, and a calibration exercise support its microfoundations and predictions concerning: i) producers' demand for low frequency payments as a commitment device; ii) an asymmetry across buyers in the ability to credibly commit to low frequency payments; iii) a segmented market equilibrium where buyers compete by providing either liquidity or saving services to producers; iv) low supply response to price increases. We derive policy implications concerning contract enforcement, financial access, and market structure.
“Interlinked Transactions and Pass-Through: Experimental Evidence from Sierra Leone” (with Tristan Reed) (Revise and Resubmit, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics) Interlinked transactions, in which prices are determined jointly with the terms of a credit relation, are a feature of many business relationships. We present a randomized experiment designed to study how value is passed along agricultural supply chains. In response to a wholesale price increase, we find limited pass-through of the price to farmers. We find a large increase, however, in credit provision. Our results suggest that the presence of interlinkages is a candidate explanation for low rates of price pass-through observed in many settings. We develop and test a model that shows this explanation has substantially different implications for welfare than others.
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Lorenzo Casaburi
“Time vs. State in Insurance: Experimental Evidence from Kenya Contract Farming” (with Jack Willis) The gains from insurance arise from the transfer of income across states. Yet, by requiring the upfront payment of the premium, standard insurance products transfer income across time. Using an RCT implemented in a contract farming scheme in Kenya, we test a novel interlinked product which removes this inter-temporal transfer: the buyer of the crop offers insurance and deducts the premium from farmer revenues at harvest time. The take-up rate is 71.6%, 67 percentage points higher than for the standard upfront contract. Additional experiments show that liquidity constraints and time preferences are important constraints on standard insurance demand. Further, by removing liquidity constraint concerns, the interlinked insurance achieves better targeting of poorer farmers. Finally, evidence from a natural experiment in the United States suggests that the above mechanisms also affect insurance adoption among farmers in developed countries.
“Rural Roads and Intermediated Trade: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Sierra Leone” (with Rachel Glennerster and Tavneet Suri) Using a road-level regression discontinuity design in Sierra Leone, we study the impacts of improvements in rural road infrastructure on crop prices in rural markets. We show that the improved roads reduced market prices of local crops. These price effects are stronger in markets that are further from major urban centers and in less productive areas. In addition, these price effects are reversed in areas with better cell phone penetration. Our empirical findings are consistent with a search cost framework à la Mortensen, but inconsistent with other models, such as Bertrand competition, bilateral bargaining, Cournot oligopsony.
Research in Progress: “Making Tax Amnesties Work” In an experiment run in partnership with the Kenya Revenue Authority, we test how to increase the fiscal revenue impact of a rental income tax amnesty. Treatments include: i) informing taxpayers the Revenue Authority has used third-party data to estimate their tax liability (with random variation in the estimation algorithm and thus in the estimated amounts); ii) varying messages concerning the rationale for the amnesty program; iii) informing taxpayers of audit strategies the Authority will undertake after the end of the amnesty period; iv) allowing taxpayers to pay overdue taxes via installment plans.
“Liquidity Constraints and Tax Evasion: Evidence from Kenya” (with Dina Pomeranz) We study the impact of a change in the timing of VAT payment on fiscal compliance and firm growth. A random subset of Kenyan firms will be randomly selected for cash accounting VAT, a system that allows firms to pay VAT after they receive payment from their customers, as opposed to the current system in which payment occurs at the time of invoicing/delivery. The proposed experimental design mimics reforms that several countries have implemented over the last decade, both in developed and developing countries. The new system may be particularly beneficial to small firms, which are more exposed to low cash flow periods and liquidity constraints.
“Contract Farming, Rainfall Shocks and Land Misallocation” (with Michael Kremer and Sendhil Mullainathan) (preliminary draft available on request) Using twenty years of administrative plot-level data from a large Kenyan contract farming scheme, we document that misallocation of land implies an output loss of 5% to 15%. Negative rainfall shocks have a contemporary impact on productivity. However, by fostering reallocation of land toward more productive plots, they increase output in subsequent years. The results suggest a potential “cleansing effect of recessions” in the agricultural sector we study.
“Harnessing ICT to Increase Agricultural Production: Evidence from Kenya” (with Michael Kremer, Sendhil Mullainathan, and Ravindra Ramrattan) (preliminary draft available on request) Sending text messages with agricultural advice to smallholder farmers increased yields by 11.5% relative to a control group with no messages. These effects are concentrated among farmers who had no agronomy training and had little interaction with sugar cane company staff at baseline. Enabling farmers to report input provision delays to the company reduces the proportion of delays in fertilizer deliveries by 21.6%. There is evidence that reporting a complaint has positive geographic spillovers, since it induces the company to deliver inputs to several neighboring plots.
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CURRICULUM VITAE Elizabeth Ann Cook-Stuntz
Address:
Littauer G27 Department of Economics Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138 [email protected] (205) 657-4638
Education:
2010-present Harvard University Ph.D. in Business Economics, expected May 2016
2006-2010 Harvard University A.B. in Applied Math with a specialization in Economics, May 2010, Cum Laude in Field, High Honors in Field, Secondary Field in Classical Studies
Research in Progress:
2015 “Daughters of Rosie the Riveter: Intergenerational Shocks to Labor Force Participation”
2012 “Does Money Matter in the South? Regional Variation in Educational Funding Effectiveness”
2011 “The Effect of Mother Homemakers on a Woman’s Job Inheritance”
2011 “A Closer Look at Private Schools’ Role in Southern School Segregation”
2010 “How Altruistic Are Organic Purchases?”
2009 “Are Young Marriages Unwise? Explaining the High Rate of Divorce for Young Marriages.”
Research Experience:
Goldman Sachs: Summer Analyst in Quantitative Resources Group of Asset Management Division, Summer 2009
Harvard University Economics Department Research Assistant to Professor Edward Glaeser, 2007-2010
Harvard’s Program for Research in Science and Engineering Fellow, Summer 2007
Research Science Institute at MIT
Cook-Stuntz 09/09/2013 Swales Aerospace Student Scholar, Summer 2005
Teaching Experience:
Harvard University Course Title: Principles of Economics (Economics S10ab) Professors David Laibson, Daron Acemoglu, John List, and Senior Lecturer Bruce Watson Position: Teaching Fellow, Summer 2013; Head Teaching Fellow, Summer 2014 Taught weekly review sessions and consulted with students during office hours. Lectured three to nine hours of class. Co-authored weekly homework, quizzes, and final exam.
Cook-Stuntz 09/09/2013 JAMES FEIGENBAUM http://scholar.harvard.edu/jfeigenbaum [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Home Contact Information Littauer Center 318 109 Museum St 1805 Cambridge St Apartment 3 Cambridge, MA 02138 Cambridge, MA 02138 978-618-3828 Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2010 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Economics Thesis Title: “Intergenerational Mobility and Inequality: Essays in Historical Labor Economics” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
References: Professor Claudia Goldin Professor Lawrence Katz Littauer Center 229 Littauer Center 224 617-613-1200 617-495-5148 [email protected] [email protected]
Professor Richard Hornbeck Professor Edward Glaeser Chicago Booth 511 Littauer Center 315A 773-702-8350 617-495-0575 [email protected] [email protected]
Undergraduate Studies: B.A. (High Honors), Economics and Mathematics, Wesleyan University, 2008
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary fields: Economic History, Labor Economics Secondary fields: Political Economy, Public Economics, Urban Economics
Teaching Experience: Spring 2013 Poverty and Development, Harvard University, Teaching Fellow for Professor Nathan Nunn Fall 2012 Historical Perspectives on Economic Ascendancy, Harvard University, Teaching Fellow for Professor Richard Hornbeck Fall 2007 Mathematical Economics, Wesleyan University, Teaching Apprentice Fall 2006 Macroeconomic Analysis, Wesleyan University, Teaching Apprentice Spring 2006 Quantitative Methods in Economics, Wesleyan University, Teaching Apprentice
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2013-Present Research Affiliate, Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS), Harvard University 2011- 2013 Research Assistant, Professor Richard Hornbeck, Harvard University 2008- 2010 Associate Analyst, NERA Economic Consulting
Professional Activities: Presentations: University of Michigan Seminar in Health, History, Demography and Development (2015); NBER Development of the American Economy Summer Institute (2015); World Congress of Cliometrics (2013); Economic History of Poverty (2012) Other: Referee for the Quarterly Journal of Economics Invited Working Group Member, SSRC, “Big Data and Historical Social Science” Coordinator, Harvard Economic History Tea, Fall 2011-Fall 2014
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2015-2016 Sokoloff Dissertation Fellowship, Economic History Association 2015 Robert Wood Johnson Seed Grant (with Christopher Muller, Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, and Jon Zelner) 2015 Harvard IQSS Research Grant 2014 Harvard Warburg Research Grant 2014 Harvard LEAP Research Grant (with James Lee and Filippo Mezzanotti) 2013-Present Thomas Cochran Fellow in Economic History, Harvard University 2012-Present Doctoral Fellow, Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy, Harvard Kennedy School 2010-Present Harvard University Graduate Student Fellowship 2008 Burton C. Hallowell Prize (top student in social sciences, Wesleyan University) 2008 Frazar B. Wilde Prize (top student in economics, Wesleyan University) 2007 Phi Beta Kappa
Job Market Paper: “Intergenerational Mobility during the Great Depression” Abstract: Do severe economic downturns increase intergenerational economic mobility by breaking links between generations, or do they instead reduce mobility by limiting opportunity for the young? To answer this question, I estimate rates of intergenerational mobility during the Great Depression in American cities that experienced downturns of varying severity. I create two new historical samples, digitizing and transcribing archival data on individual earnings and linking fathers to sons before and after the Depression. To build these longitudinal samples, I develop a machine learning approach to census matching that enables me to link individuals accurately and efficiently between censuses in the absence of unique identification numbers. I find that the Great Depression lowered intergenerational mobility for sons growing up in cities hit by large downturns. These results are not driven by place-specific mobility differences: for the generation before the Depression, mobility between 1900 and 1920 is unrelated to future downturn intensity. Differential directed migration is a key mechanism to explain my results. Although sons fled distressed cities at similar rates, the sons of richer fathers migrated to locations that had suffered less severe Depression effects. The differences in rates of intergenerational mobility for sons in the most and least Depression-affected cities are comparable to the differences between the United States and Sweden today.
Publications: “How Legislators Respond to Localized Economic Shocks: Evidence from Chinese Import Competition” (with Andrew B. Hall), Journal of Politics 77(4):1012-1030 (2015).
“The Vicious Cycle: Fundraising and Perceived Viability in US Presidential Primaries” (with Cameron A. Shelton), Quarterly Journal of Political Science 8(1): 1-40 (2013).
Additional Research Papers: “A New Old Measure of Intergenerational Mobility” (Revise and Resubmit, Economic Journal) Abstract: Was intergenerational economic mobility high in the early twentieth century in the United States? I combine two historical data sources to estimate mobility between 1915 and 1940. I match fathers from the Iowa State Census of 1915 to their sons in the 1940 Federal Census, the first state and federal censuses with data on income and years of education. In my sample, I estimate a lower intergenerational elasticity of income than is found in studies of the United States today, suggesting higher historical levels of income mobility. Mobility measured with relative income ranks also shows higher mobility historically. Intergenerational mobility of education is higher in my sample than in contemporary data as well. I find sons in rural counties in 1915 to have more mobility of both income and education than urban sons.
“Lead Exposure and Violent Crime in the Early Twentieth Century” (with Christopher Muller) (Revise and Resubmit, Explorations in Economic History) Abstract: In the second half of the nineteenth century, many American cities built water systems using lead or iron service pipes. Municipal water systems generated significant public health improvements, but these improvements may have been partially offset by the damaging effects of lead exposure through lead water pipes. We study the effect of cities' use of lead pipes on homicide between 1921 and 1936. Lead water pipes exposed entire city populations to much higher doses of lead than have previously been studied in relation to crime. Our estimates suggest that cities' use of lead service pipes considerably increased city-level homicide rates.
“Automated Census Record Linking: A Machine Learning Approach” Abstract: Thanks to the availability of new historical census sources and advances in record linking technology, economic historians are becoming big data genealogists. Linking individuals over time and between databases has opened up new avenues for research into intergenerational mobility, assimilation, discrimination, and the returns to education. To take advantage of these new research opportunities, scholars need to be able to accurately and efficiently match historical records and produce an unbiased dataset of links for downstream analysis. I detail a standard and transparent census matching technique for constructing linked samples that can be replicated across a variety of cases. The procedure applies insights from machine learning classification and text comparison to the well-known problem of record linkage, but with a focus on the sorts of costs and benefits of working with historical data. I begin by extracting a subset of possible matches for each record, and then use training data to tune a matching algorithm that attempts to minimize both false positives and false negatives, taking into account the inherent noise in historical records. To make the procedure precise, I trace its application to an example from my own work, linking children from the 1915 Iowa State Census to their adult-selves in the 1940 Federal Census. In addition, I provide guidance on a number of practical questions, including how large the training data needs to be relative to the sample.
“From the Bargaining Table to the Ballot Box: The Effects of Labor Unions on Elections” Abstract: In American elections, labor union members are more likely to vote for Democratic candidates, and Democrats tend to represent states and districts with more union members. But does the strength of organized labor have a causal effect on election results? I use union certification regression discontinuities to measure union effects and find that private-sector unions do have a positive effect on Democratic vote share in presidential races: an additional union increases Democratic vote share at the county level by 5 percentage points. This suggests that each new union member “converts” 18 new Democratic voters, with the conversion rate decreasing in union size. The effects on Congressional elections are not significant. I find that an additional union increases contributions from labor PACs to Democratic congressional candidates by 35 to 40 thousand dollars, with no effect on Republican candidates. While there is no union effect on overall partisan positioning of congressional representatives, I do find that unions push Democrats to the left on labor, trade, and general economic issues.
“Capital Destruction and Economic Growth: the Effects of General Sherman’s March to the Sea, 1850- 1880” (with James Lee and Filippo Mezzanotti) Abstract: What was the economic impact of General William Sherman’s 1864-65 military march through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina? How does local economic activity respond in both the short- and long-run to capital and infrastructure destruction? We match an 1865 US War Department map of Sherman’s march to detailed county level demographic, agricultural, and manufacturing data from US Censuses, 1850-1930. We show that both agricultural and manufacturing output fell relatively more from 1860 to 1870 and 1880 in Sherman counties compared to non-Sherman counties in the same state. These relative declines do not appear to be driven by differential out-migration, demographic patterns, or long-lasting infrastructure destruction. Instead, by collecting new historical data on local banks, we show that damage to credit markets was more severe in march counties and that these financial disruptions can help explain the larger declines in economic output.
“Communication and Investment: Evidence from the Expansion of Postal Services” (with Martin Rotemberg) Abstract: When acquiring information about potential buyers is costly, sellers will be unable to make the best possible match. We capture the consequences of this in a model where producers make investment decisions anticipating their future response to search costs. When one good has higher information frictions than another, decreasing those frictions increases production of that good along the extensive and intensive margins, and with specialization constraints production of the other good will decrease. Using a novel dataset on the roll-out of free postal delivery in rural communities in the US at the turn of the 20th century, we find evidence in line with the predictions of the model, as investment in manufacturing significantly increased in counties which got more free delivery routes, and agricultural investment weakly decreased. We use newspaper subscriptions as a proxy first stage, finding that access to new post office services did increase newspaper circulation. We also extend our basic model to show how cheaper communication can lead to the dispersion of production and consumption, an effect which is magnified by access to cheaper transportation, and find support for this prediction as well.
Research in Progress: “School Quality and Civic Returns to Education” (with Sarah Cohodes) “Majority-Party Disadvantage: Evidence from a Multidimensional Regression Discontinuity Design” (with Alexander Fouirnaies and Andrew B. Hall) “How High-Income Neighborhoods Receive More Service from Municipal Government: Evidence from City Administrative Data” (with Andrew B. Hall)
PETER GANONG scholar.harvard.edu/ganong [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information 1805 Cambridge St., Littauer Center Cambridge, MA 02138 617-763-9667
Undergraduate Studies: A.B. Economics and Math, Harvard, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, 2009
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2010 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Economics Thesis Title: Essays in Labor and Public Economics Expected Completion Date: June 2016
References: Professor Lawrence Katz, Chair Professor David Laibson Littauer Center 224, Cambridge, MA Littauer Center M-12, Cambridge, MA [email protected], 617- 495-5148 [email protected] 617-496-3402
Professor Jeffrey Liebman Taubman 318, Cambridge, MA [email protected] 617-495-8518
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary fields: Labor Economics, Public Economics
Secondary fields: Macroeconomics, Econometrics
Work Experience 2014-2015 City of Boston, Special Assistant for Data Analytics
2009-2010 White House Council of Economic Advisers, Research Assistant
Professional Activities Presentations “The Incidence of Housing Voucher Generosity” NBER Summer Institute, Society of Labor Economists, MDRC, HUD “Why Has Regional Income Convergence in the U.S. Declined?”: NBER Summer Institute, NYU, Dartmouth, Urban Economics Association, American Law and Economics Association “Criminal Rehabilitation, Incapacitation, and Aging”: Bonn Workshop on Economics of Crime
Referee Service Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Urban Economics, Economic Inquiry, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2015-2016 NBER Pre-Doctoral Fellowship on the Economics of an Aging Workforce ($25,000) 2015 Hirtle Callaghan Prize ($20,000 with Pascal Noel) 2015 Lab for Economic Applications and Policy ($7,500, with Pascal Noel) 2014-2015 Taubman Fellow at City of Boston ($30,000) 2014 Washington Center for Equitable Growth ($15,000, with Pascal Noel) 2012-2013 NBER Pre-Doctoral Fellow in Aging and Health ($21,600) 2013 Bradley Fellow ($5,000) 2012 Meyer Fellow at Joint Center for Housing Studies ($5,000)
Job Market Paper [Undergoing Disclosure Review, To Be Posted November 5] “How Does Unemployment Affect Consumer Spending?” with Pascal Noel We study the spending of unemployed individuals using anonymized data from a large US retail bank. We analyze data from 300,000 checking accounts which received a direct deposit of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. Account holders are similar to external benchmarks on income, spending, assets, and age. Spending on nondurable goods and services drops by about $200 per month at the onset of a UI spell. The same categories of spending drop most at UI onset and at retirement. After adjusting for these apparently work-related expenses, we estimate that spending drops by 17% of the drop in income. Spending falls slowly during UI receipt and then sharply in the month after benefits are exhausted, where we estimate that spending drops by 37% of the drop in income. We calibrate a buffer stock model of household spending. The observed path of spending is consistent with what the model predicts for a family with liquid assets equal to about one month’s income at onset. However, the model is unable to match the sharp decline in spending in the month benefits are exhausted. We discuss three possible factors outside the neo-classical model which might contribute to the decline at exhaustion.
Research Papers – Published Or Revise and Resubmit: “A Permutation Test and Estimation Alternatives for the Regression Kink Design” with Simon Jaeger Journal of American Statistical Association, revise and resubmit, second round The Regression Kink (RK) design is an increasingly popular empirical method for causal inference. Analogous to the Regression Discontinuity design, which evaluates discontinuous changes in the level of an outcome variable with respect to the running variable at a point at which the level of a policy changes, the RK design evaluates discontinuous changes in the slope of an outcome variable with respect to the running variable at a kink point at which the slope of a policy with respect to the running variable changes. We document empirically that RK estimates are highly sensitive to nonlinearity in the underlying relationship between the outcome and the assignment variable. As an alternative to standard inference, we propose that researchers construct a distribution of placebo estimates in regions with and without a policy kink and use this distribution to gauge statistical significance. Under the assumption that the location of the kink point is random, this permu- tation test has exact size in finite samples for testing a sharp null hypothesis of no effect of the policy on the outcome. In simulation studies with policy kinks, we find that statistical significance based on conventional standard errors may be spurious. In contrast, our permutation test has exact size even in the presence of non-linearity.
“The Incidence of Housing Voucher Generosity” with Rob Collinson American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, revise and resubmit What is the incidence of housing vouchers? Housing voucher recipients in the US typically pay their landlord a fixed amount based on their income and the government pays the rest of the rent, up to a rent ceiling. We consider a policy that raises the generosity of the rent ceiling everywhere, which is equivalent to an income effect, and a policy which links generosity to local unit quality, which is equivalent to a substitution effect. Using data on the universe of housing vouchers and quasi-experimental variation from HUD policy changes, we analyze the incidence of these policies. Raising the generosity of the rent ceiling everywhere appears to primarily benefit landlords, who receive higher rents with very little evidence of medium-run quality improvements. Setting ZIP code-level rent ceilings causes rent increases in expensive neighborhoods and decreases in low-cost neighborhoods, with little change in aggregate rents. The ZIP code policy improves neighborhood quality as much as other, far more costly, voucher interventions.
“The Decline, Rebound, and Further Rise in SNAP Enrollment: Disentangling Business Cycle Fluctuations and Policy Changes” with Jeff Liebman American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, revise and resubmit, second round 1-in-7 Americans received benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in July 2011, an all-time high. We analyze changes in SNAP enrollment over the past two decades. Business cycle fluctuations correlate strongly with SNAP take-up, with a sustained one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate raising SNAP enrollment by 18 percent. Policy changes had different impacts in different periods. From 1994 to 2001, coincident with welfare reform, take-up fell from 75 percent to 54 percent of eligible people, with this decline attributable to both the strong economy and to welfare reform. The take-up rate then rebounded, and, following several policy changes to improve program access, stabilized at 69 percent in 2007. At least half of the increase in take-up during this period was policy-driven. Finally, take-up rose dramatically in the Great Recession, reaching 87 percent in 2011. We find that changes in local unemployment can explain 73 percent the increase in enrollment during the Great Recession and temporary rule changes that are triggered when unemployment is high can explain another 10 percent. Permanent state- level policy expansions can explain only 8 percent. Thus most of the recession-era increase in SNAP enrollment was the result of the program’s automatic stabilizer features.
“Criminal Rehabilitation, Incapacitation, and Aging” (undergraduate thesis) American Law and Economics Review Fall 2012, 14(2): 391-424 In April 1993, Georgia instituted new parole guidelines that led to longer prison terms for parole- eligible offenders. This paper shows that an extra year of prison reduces the three-year recidivism rate by 6 percentage points (14%) and that the benefits of preventing this crime are likely outweighed by the costs of this additional incarceration. I develop a new econometric framework to jointly estimate the effects of rehabilitation, incapacitation, and aging in reducing crime. Estimates of incapacitation effects using existing methodologies are biased upward by at least a factor of 2 because they focus on a short time horizon.
Research Papers in Progress
“Why Has Regional Income Convergence in the U.S. Declined?” with Daniel Shoag The past thirty years have seen a dramatic decrease in the rate of income convergence across states and in population flows to wealthy places. These changes coincide with (1) an increase in housing prices in productive areas, (2) a divergence in the skill-specific real returns to living in productive places, (3) a redirection of low-skilled migration and (4) diminished human capital convergence due to migration. We develop a model where falling housing supply elasticity and endogenous labor mobility generates these patterns. Using a new panel measure of housing supply regulations, we demonstrate the importance of this channel. Income convergence continues in less-regulated places, while it has stopped in more-regulated places.
“How Well Do Online Job Postings Reflect Labor Demand?”
“Debt Overhang and Housing Policy in the Great Recession”, with Pascal Noel
RYOTA IIJIMA
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: Gita Gopinath [email protected] 617-495-8161 Placement Director: Nathan Nunn [email protected] 617-496-4958 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Littauer Center 314, 1805 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA, 02138 617-301-2156
Undergraduate Studies: B.A. in Economics, University of Tokyo, 2009
Graduate Studies: M.A. in Economics, University of Tokyo, 2011 Harvard University, 2011 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Economics Thesis Title: “Essays in Games and Decisions with Uncertainty” Expected Completion Date: June 2016
References: Professor Drew Fudenberg Professor Tomasz Strzalecki Littauer Center 310 Littauer Center 322 [email protected] [email protected]
Professor Benjamin Golub Littauer Center 308 [email protected]
Teaching and Research Fields: Microeconomic theory, Game Theory, Decision Theory, Networks
Teaching Experience: Fall, 2014 Decision Theory (graduate), Harvard University, grader for Professor Tomasz Strzalecki Spring, 2011 Calculus (undergraduate), University of Tokyo, teaching fellow for Professor Kazuya Kamiya Spring, 2010 Microeconomic Theory (graduate), University of Tokyo, teaching fellow for Professor Michihiro Kandori Fall, 2010 Microeconomic Theory (graduate), University of Tokyo, teaching fellow for Professor Akihiko Matsui Fall 2009 Microeconomics (undergraduate), University of Tokyo, teaching fellow for Professor Akihiko Matsui Spring, 2009 Mathematics for Economics (graduate), University of Tokyo, teaching fellow for Professor Akihiko Matsui
Research Experience: 2013-2015 Research Assistant to Professor Drew Fudenberg
Professional Activities
Presentations: RUD (Bocconi 2015), World Congress of the Econometric Society (Montreal 2015), University of Tokyo (2013, 2015), Hitotsubashi University (2015), Kyoto University (2015), University of Wisconsin-Madison (Theory Lunch 2013), WINE (Harvard 2013), Games 2012 (Istanbul), 6th Pan- Pacific Conference on Game Theory (Tokyo Institute of Technology 2010), Darwin Seminar (Tokyo Institute of Technology 2010), Second Brazilian Workshop of the Game Theory Society (2010), The Chinese Game Theory and Experimental Economics Association (2010), Conference ``Evolution of Cooperation: Models and Theories" (Laxenburg 2009), Far East and South Asia Meeting of the Econometric Society (Tokyo 2009)
Referee: Dynamic Games and Applications, Econometrica, Games and Economic Behavior, Journal of Economic Theory, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Theoretical Economics
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2015-2016 Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Harvard University 2011-present Harvard Grant 2011 Research Fellow of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (DC1)
Publications: “Stochastic Choice and Revealed Perturbed Utility” (with Drew Fudenberg and Tomasz Strzalecki), forthcoming in Econometrica “Iterated Generalized Half-Dominance and Global Game Selection”, Journal of Economic Theory, 159: 120-136, 2015 “On Delayed Discrete Evolutionary Dynamics” Journal of Theoretical Biology, 300(7): 1-6, 2012 “Heterogeneous Information Lags and Evolutionary Stability” Mathematical Social Sciences, 61(2): 83- 85, 2011
Research Papers: “Gradual Adjustment and Equilibrium Uniqueness under Noisy Monitoring” (with Akitada Kasahara) (Job Market Paper) (2nd revision resubmitted to Econometrica)
Abstract: We study the implications of flexible adjustment in strategic interactions using a class of finite-horizon models in continuous time. Players take costly actions to affect the evolution of state variables that are commonly observable and perturbed by Brownian noise. The values of these state variables influence players' terminal payoffs at the deadline, as well as their flow payoffs. In contrast to the static case, the equilibrium is unique under a general class of terminal payoff functions. Our characterization of the equilibrium builds on recent developments in the theory of backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs). We use this tool to analyze applications, including team production, hold-up problems, and dynamic contests. In a team production model, the unique equilibrium selects an efficient outcome when frictions vanish.
“Comparative Measures of Naiveté” (with David S. Ahn and Todd Sarver) “Unique Equilibrium Selection and Potential: A Continuous-Time Approach” (with Akitada Kasahara) “Social Distance and Network Structures” (with Yuichiro Kamada) revise and resubmit at Theoretical Economics “Deterministic Equilibrium Selection under Payoff-Perturbed Dynamics”
Research Papers in progress: “Racing to Decide: A Dual Selves Model of Response Times and Stochastic Choice” (with Mira Frick) “Naiveté about Temptation and Self-Control: Foundations for Naive Quasi-Hyperbolic Discounting” (with David S. Ahn and Todd Sarver) “Coordination Failure and Network Structures” “Mean-Field Approximation of Forward-Looking Population Dynamics” (with Daisuke Oyama) “Timing of Trades, Welfare, and Price Dispersion” (with Yuichiro Kamada)
SIMON JÄGER http://scholar.harvard.edu/jaeger/ [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information: Littauer Center 1805 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA 02138 (617) 410-6081
Undergraduate Studies: M.Sc. in Economics, University of Bonn, 2008–2010 Visiting Student in Economics, UC Berkeley, 2008–2009 B.Sc. in Economics, University of Bonn, 2006–2008
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2010 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Economics Thesis Title: “Essays in Labor and Public Economics” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
References: Professor Lawrence Katz, Chair Professor Raj Chetty Harvard University, Littauer Center 224 Stanford University [email protected], (617) 495-5148 [email protected], (617) 744-9492
Professor Edward Glaeser Professor Andrei Shleifer
Harvard University, Littauer Center 315A Harvard University, Littauer Center M9 [email protected], (617) 495-0575 [email protected], (617) 495-5046
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary fields: Labor Economics, Public Economics Secondary fields: Applied Econometrics, Behavioral Economics
Teaching Experience: Fall 2012 Graduate Public Economics, Harvard University, Teaching Fellow for Raj Chetty, and Fall 2013 Certificate of Distinction in Teaching 2013
Research Experience and Affiliations: 2013 to present Co-founding and -coordination, Harvard University-German Federal Employment Agency-Research Data Center 2013 to present Research Affiliate, Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) 2009 to present Research Affiliate, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
1 Professional Activities: Presentations: …....22015: IAB, Munich Field Days, HKS Growth Lab, Harvard Statistics; 2014: NTA Santa Fe, Munich Field Days, NBER Productivity Sem., CEBID Conference; 2013: WZB Berlin, U. Bonn; 2012: IAB Workshop, IZA Workshop, 2010: IZA Workshop, Thurgau Experimental Economics Meeting Referee Service: AEJ: Applied Economics, European Economic Review, Journal of the European Economic Association, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Urban Economics, Management Science, Quarterly Journal of Economics Other: University of Chicago, Price Theory Summer Camp (2012)
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2012 to present Doctoral Fellow in Inequality and Social Policy, Harvard Kennedy School 2015–2016 Chiles Fellowship, Harvard University 2014–2015 NBER, Humane Studies Fellowship, Taubman Center Fellowship 2014 IQSS Research Grant 2013–2015 Bradley Fellowship 2012, 2013 Grant from Lab for Economic Applications and Policy, Harvard University 2010–2012 Harvard Stipend, Douglas Dillon Fellowship Fund (2011–2012) 2010–2012 Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes (German National Academic Foundation) ERP Fellowship Program 2009–2010 Bonn Graduate School of Economics Fellowship 2008–2009 Fulbright Fellowship
Job Market Paper: “How Substitutable Are Workers? Evidence from Worker Deaths” Abstract: The substitutability of workers within a firm, and between incumbent workers and outsiders, matters directly for understanding the sources of labor market frictions and the operation of internal labor markets. I investigate the substitutability of workers by estimating how exogenous worker exits affect a firm’s demand for its remaining incumbent workers. Using matched employer-employee data based on the universe of German social security records, I analyze the effects of 34,000 unexpected deaths of workers and show that such worker exits on average raise the remaining workers’ wages and retention probabilities for several years. The findings are difficult to reconcile with frictionless labor markets and perfect substitutability between incumbent workers and outsiders. The average effect masks substantial heterogeneity: Positive effects of a worker exit on incumbent worker wages are concentrated among coworkers in the same occupation as the deceased; coworkers in other occupations instead experience wage decreases when a high- skilled worker or manager dies. Coworkers in the same occupation thus appear to be substitutes, while high-skilled workers and managers appear to be complements to workers in other occupations. Finally, incumbents’ wages respond more and external hiring responds less to a worker death when the external labor market in the deceased’s occupation is thin. This suggests that workers are harder to replace when their human capital is more firm-specific.
Publication: “Complex Tax Incentives” (with Johannes Abeler), American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 7 (3): 1–28, August 2015 Abstract: How does complexity affect people's reaction to tax changes? To answer this question, we conduct an experiment in which subjects work for a piece rate and face taxes. One treatment features a simple, the other a complex tax system. Subjects' economic incentives are identical across treatments. We introduce the same sequence of additional taxes in both treatments. Subjects in the complex treatment underreact to new taxes; some ignore new taxes entirely. The underreaction is stronger for subjects with lower cognitive ability. Contrary to predictions from models of rational inattention, subjects are equally likely to ignore large or small incentive changes.
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Additional Research Papers: “A Permutation Test for the Regression Kink Design” (with Peter Ganong), Second round Revise and Resubmit at the Journal of the American Statistical Association Abstract: The Regression Kink (RK) design is an increasingly popular empirical method for causal inference. Analogous to the Regression Discontinuity design, which evaluates discontinuous changes in the level of an outcome variable with respect to the running variable at a point at which the level of a policy changes, the RK design evaluates discontinuous changes in the slope of an outcome variable with respect to the running variable at a kink point at which the slope of a policy with respect to the running variable changes. We document empirically that RK estimates are highly sensitive to nonlinearity in the underlying relationship between the outcome and the assignment variable. As an alternative to standard inference, we propose that researchers construct a distribution of placebo estimates in regions with and without a policy kink and use this distribution to gauge statistical significance. Under the assumption that the location of the kink point is random, this permutation test has exact size in finite samples for testing a sharp null hypothesis of no effect of the policy on the outcome. In simulation studies with policy kinks, we find that statistical significance based on conventional standard errors may be spurious. In contrast, our permutation test has exact size even in the presence of non-linearity.
“Learning about Job Search: A Field Experiment with Job Seekers in Germany” (with Steffen Altmann, Armin Falk, and Florian Zimmermann) Abstract: We conduct a large-scale field experiment in the German labor market to investigate how information provision affects job seekers' employment prospects and labor market outcomes. Individuals assigned to the treatment group of our experiment received a brochure that informed them about job search strategies and the consequences of unemployment, and motivated them to actively look for new employment. We study the causal impact of the brochure by comparing labor market outcomes of treated and untreated job seekers in administrative data containing comprehensive information on individuals' employment status and earnings. While our treatment yields overall positive effects, these tend to be concentrated among job seekers who are at risk of being unemployed for an extended period of time. Specifically, the treatment effects in our overall sample are moderately positive but mostly insignificant. At the same time, we do observe pronounced and statistically significant effects for individuals who exhibit an increased risk of long-term unemployment. For this group, the brochure increases employment and earnings in the year after the intervention by roughly 4%. Given the low cost of the intervention, our findings indicate that targeted information provision can be a highly effective policy tool in the labor market.
Work in Progress: “The Economic Returns to Higher Education: Evidence from University Openings in Germany” Abstract: What are the economic returns to higher education? I use the openings of new universities in Germany coupled with administrative data on earnings to provide new evidence on this question. I document that the opening of a new university in an individual's district increases the likelihood of obtaining a university degree. I conduct several tests to verify the robustness of this finding. I use this variation to instrument the effect of education on earnings later in life–measured using social security data–and obtain large and positive return estimates. The results of my study document the economic returns to an expansion of the higher education system and suggest that university education has high labor market returns even in an environment featuring a high-quality apprenticeship training system.
“Long-Term Effects of University Education on Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Evidence from Admission Cutoffs in Denmark” (with Daniel le Maire and Tore Olsen) Abstract: A central justification for subsidizing higher education is that the returns of such education accrue not just to the students but to society, because well educated students might pay
3 higher individual taxes, be more likely to start new companies, create employment for others, transfer skills to their co-workers, innovate, and help grow the economy. However, very little is known about the magnitude of such social returns to higher education, and more specifically about how higher education fosters entrepreneurship. By applying a regression discontinuity strategy using admission cutoffs in Danish universities combined with long-term data on individual outcomes, we causally assess the role of higher education on entrepreneurship and patenting activity. In doing so, we can quantify some of the positive externalities created by higher education, which in turn provides an argument for why and how university-level education should be subsidized.
“The Incidence of Corporate Taxation: Evidence from Firm-Specific Tax Rates” (with Benjamin Schoefer and Philipp vom Berge) Abstract: We estimate firm-level effects of corporate taxation on investment, employment and within-firm reallocation using the firm-specific tax rates generated by the German tax apportionment system. We construct firm-specific tax rates with new data on firms’ distribution of establishments across municipalities. Our tax variation comes from changes in municipal rates as well as a federal reform that interacted with local rates.
“Long-Term Consequences of Inequality: Evidence from Historical Inheritance Rules” (with Natalie Obergruber) Abstract: We use sharp geographic variation in the historical prevalence of inheritance rules for land in Germany to shed light on how the division of property affects economic development. We contrast unequal inheritance rules–such as primogeniture or ultimogeniture–with equal inheritance rules, which prescribe an equal sharing of parental assets among children. Equal sharing areas had lower levels of landholding inequality throughout the 19th century and were less industrialized at the beginning of the century. Analyzing long-term outcomes, we find higher per-capita incomes in equal-sharing areas along with higher shares of employment in high-skilled industries and a higher density of entrepreneurs. In ongoing work, we analyze the historical patterns of occupational choice to shed light on the mechanisms through which inheritance institutions affect long-term outcomes.
4 SANGRAM VILASRAO KADAM
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart OHART@ HARVARD.EDU 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Littauer Center 318, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138// 617-758-9751
Personal Information: Citizenship: Indian
Undergraduate/Graduate Studies: Ph.D. Finance (Incomplete, only completed the qualifiers), London School of Economics, 2010 M.Sc., Finance and Economics, London School of Economics, (1st in a class of 80), 2009 M.Tech., (under a dual degree program) Microelectronics, IIT Bombay, 2005 B.Tech., (under a dual degree program) Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay, 2005
Doctoral Studies: Harvard University, 2010 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Economics Thesis Title: “Essays on Preference Formation Processes and Dynamics in Matching Markets ” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
Thesis Committee and References: Professor Alvin E. Roth Professor Eric Maskin Stanford University Harvard University 650-725-9147// [email protected] 617-495-4434// [email protected]
Professor Oliver Hart Professor Maciej H. Kotowski Harvard University Harvard Kennedy School 617-496-3960// [email protected] 617-495-8514// [email protected]
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary fields: Microeconomic Theory, Market Design Secondary fields: Organizational Economics, Corporate Finance
Teaching Experience: Spring, 2015 Econ 1745: Corporate Finance, Teaching Fellow for Professor Matteo Maggiori Spring, 2014 HBS 4011/ Econ 2020b/API 112: Microeconomic Theory II (PhD), Teaching Fellow for Professor Chris Avery and Elon Kohlberg Fall, 2013 API 109: Advanced Microeconomic Analysis I (MPA-ID), Course Assistant for Professor Maciej H. Kotowski Spring, 2013 Econ 1760: Topics in Finance, Teaching Fellow for Professor Adriano Rampini Fall, 2012, 2011 Econ 1010a2: Advanced Microeconomics, Head Teaching Fellow for Professor Marc Melitz and Teaching Fellow for Professor Jeff Miron Research Experience and Other Employment: Summer, 2009 London School of Economics, Research Assistant to Professor Amil Dasgupta 2005-2008 Capital One Corporation (Richmond, VA) Senior Business Analyst
Professional Activities, Referee service: International Economic Review, Symposium on Algorithmic Game Theory 2015
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2015-16 Roger L. Martin Cornerstone Graduate Student Fellowship 2015-16 Institute for Humane Studies PhD Scholarship & Conference/Research Grant 2014 Danielian Travel and Research Grant from Harvard University 2011-12 Douglas Dillon Fellow at Harvard University 2010-11 Government of India Scholarship in the honor of Amartya Sen 2009-10 Fellowship from the Department of Finance, LSE 2009 Antoine Faure-Grimaud Prize for the best overall performer in the MSc Finance and Economics Program
Job Market Paper: “Interviewing in Matching Markets” Interviewing decisions often shape labor market outcomes. This paper proposes a framework for interviewing in a many-to-one matching market where firms and graduating students have capacity constraints on the number of interviews. While intuition suggests that relaxing interviewing constraints should improve the market’s operation, this is not always the case. As participants are strategic in their interviewing decisions, interviewing constraints carry subtle implications for aggregate surplus, employment, and the distribution of welfare. We relate the insights obtained to some features in matching markets. First, firms frequently pass over even stellar candidates at the market’s interviewing stage and as a result, some highly-skilled students may “fall through the cracks.” Second, relaxing students’ interviewing constraints benefits all firms and only the best students, but it adversely impacts the lower-ranked students. Third, this increase in capacity improves the social surplus but may decrease the number of matched agents. This may be undesirable if a social planner cares about the number of matched agents along with or as compared to, the social surplus. Fourth, in some cases a higher-ranked student may be worse off than a lower- ranked student due to firms’ interviewing constraints. We show how credible signaling can ameliorate such inefficiencies. Lastly, interviewing in the presence of a low capacity acts as a sorting mechanism and an increase in the interviewing capacity may even lead to a decrease in social welfare due to reduced sorting.
Research Papers: “Time Horizons, Lattice Structures, and Welfare in Multi-Period Matching Markets” (joint with Maciej H. Kotowski) We consider a T-period, bilateral matching economy without monetary transfers. Under natural restrictions on agents’ preferences, which accommodate switching costs, status -quo bias, and other forms of inter-temporal complementarity, dynamically-stable matchings exist. Generally, “optimal” dynamically-stable matchings may not exist, but under a suitable partial order the stable set forms a lattice. The welfare properties of different stable outcomes is ascertained and the implications for normative market-design are discussed. The robustness of dynamically-stable matchings with respect to the market’s time horizon is examined.
“Multi-Period Matching Markets” (joint with Maciej H. Kotowski) We examine a dynamic, multi-period, bilateral matching market, such as a labor market where workers are long-lived and production occurs over a period of time. We define and identify sufficient conditions for the existence of a dynamically stable matching. Our framework accommodates many forms of inter-temporal preference complementarities, including a taste for variety and a status-quo bias. Extensions of our model incorporating imperfect information and financial transfers are proposed. We relate our analysis to market unraveling and to common market-design applications, including the medical residency match periods.
“Unilateral Substitutability implies Subsitutable Completability in Many-to-One Matching Markets ” We prove that the unilateral substitutability property introduced in Hatfield-Kojima (2008) implies substitutable completability from Hatfield-Kominers (2011). This paper provides a novel linkage between these two sufficient conditions for the existence of a stable matching in many-to-one matching markets with contracts. A substitutable completion of a preference is addition of some sets of contracts to create a preference which satisfies substitutability. We provide a constructive proof of the connection between the two properties using an algorithm to reach at such a substitutable completion.
“On the large market core convergence result in two-sided Matching Markets ” Kojima and Pathak [4] (henceforth KP) provided the theoretical foundation for the remarkable `core convergence' result from Roth and Peranson [5] (henceforth RP) by analyzing a series of large random markets. In this paper, we illustrate via simple computations that the theoretical bound and the analysis provided in KP are meaningful only in markets of size significantly larger than the ones found in practice. Thus, in the absence of a tighter bound, the KP limit analysis can’t explain RP's `core convergence' result in practice. This says that the question is still open for relevant market sizes.
Research Paper(s) in Progress
“Existence of Stability in Matching Markets with Salaries” (joint with Jan Christoph Schlegel) “Centralized Interviewing”
ROHAN KEKRE http://scholar.harvard.edu/rkekre [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information: Littauer Center, 1805 Cambridge St Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138 Cell: 646-436-4753
Undergraduate and Prior Graduate Studies: AB, Applied Mathematics, Harvard University, summa cum laude, 2008 AM, Statistics, Harvard University, 2008
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2010 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Business Economics Expected Thesis Title: “Essays in Macroeconomics” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
References: Professor Emmanuel Farhi Professor Gita Gopinath Harvard Department of Economics Harvard Department of Economics 617-496-1835, [email protected] 617-495-8161, [email protected]
Professor Raj Chetty Professor Gabriel Chodorow-Reich Stanford Department of Economics Harvard Department of Economics 617-744-9492, [email protected] 617-496-3226, [email protected]
Fields: Primary: Macroeconomics, International Finance Secondary: Public Finance, Finance
Teaching Experience: Spring 2014 Ec 2010d (Graduate Macro), teaching fellow for Professor Kenneth Rogoff Spring 2013 Ec 2010d (Graduate Macro), teaching fellow for Professor Kenneth Rogoff
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2012 Harvard University, Research Assistant to Professor Elhanan Helpman 2008 – 2010 McKinsey & Company, Risk Practice Business Analyst (New York, NY) 2007 Goldman Sachs, Summer Analyst (New York, NY)
Referee Service: Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of International Economics, and Economics of Transition
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Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2015 Sandra Ohrn Family Graduate Student Dissertation Fellowship 2014 Harvard Certificate of Distinction in Teaching (average student rating 5.0/5.0) 2013 Harvard Certificate of Distinction in Teaching (average student rating 4.9/5.0)
Job Market Paper:
“Unemployment Insurance in Macroeconomic Stabilization” Does the generosity of unemployment insurance (UI) have a role to play in macroeconomic stabilization? When inefficient fluctuations can be traced to nominal rigidities and constraints on monetary policy, I demonstrate that it does, owing to the interaction between UI and aggregate demand. From a positive perspective, a marginal increase in UI generosity affects macroeconomic aggregates through the effect of redistribution on aggregate demand, which is sufficient to characterize the effect on output in a benchmark case. From a normative perspective, two forces determine optimal UI generosity beyond the classic trade- off between insurance and incentives: an aggregate demand externality and an effect of low aggregate demand on the incentive cost of UI. The redistribution effect and aggregate demand externality are governed by the same statistic: the difference in marginal propensities to consume between the unemployed and employed. Quantitatively, a calibrated model with search frictions, incomplete markets, and a binding zero lower bound suggests that the 2008-13 UI benefit extensions in the U.S. had important stabilization effects through these channels. Compared to counterfactual benefit durations capped at 9 months in the calibrated model, the extensions to 22 months prevent a 2-5 percentage point rise in the unemployment rate and generate a strict Pareto improvement.
Research Papers In Progress:
“Labor Market Heterogeneity in a Currency Union” While labor market institutions differ widely across the Eurozone, the classic theory of Optimal Currency Areas incorporates no role for such institutional differences. Motivated by this fact, I integrate Diamond- Mortensen-Pissarides search frictions into a standard model of a two-country currency union to understand how such differences affect macroeconomic tradeoffs and stabilization policy across the union. Given sticky prices in each country, I obtain two main results. First, despite arbitrarily different search frictions in each country, the union's central bank can achieve the constrained efficient allocation if and only if productivity shocks affecting each country are symmetric – as in the frictionless Mundellian benchmark – given a commonly-used parameterization of preferences and technology. Second, for a given set of asymmetric shocks that necessitates distortions in the currency union, optimal policy targets smaller employment gaps in the economy with a more frictional labor market.
“Firm vs. Bank Leverage over the Business Cycle” I develop a general equilibrium model featuring asymmetric information between issuers and investors to explain the contrasting behavior of leverage for non-financial corporates (“firms”) and financial intermediaries (“banks”) over the business cycle. Firm leverage is countercyclical because the lemons discount in equity issuance falls relative to the costs of financial distress in a boom. Bank leverage is procyclical because banks are endogenously more diversified than firms and their capacity to issue safe debt, the cheapest form of external finance, increases in a boom. I use this model to explain cross- sectional differences in the cyclicality of leverage, such as between commercial banks and broker/dealers, and between more and less bank-dependent firms. Finally, I study the efficiency of the competitive equilibrium. While the level of bank leverage may be constrained inefficient, the procyclicality of safe debt issuance is not. As such, a binding but procyclical cap on bank leverage can increase welfare.
Last updated November 1, 2015
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DIVYA KIRTI http://scholar.harvard.edu/dkirti [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Home Contact Information Harvard University, Littauer Center 200 5 Cowperthwaite Street, Apt 220 1805 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Cambridge, MA 02138 Mobile: 607-279-9450
Undergraduate Studies: BA, Economics (summa cum laude) and Mathematics (magna cum laude), Cornell University, 2010
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2011 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Economics Thesis Title: “Essays in Financial Economics” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
References: Professor David Scharfstein Professor Jeremy Stein Harvard Business School, Baker Library 363 Harvard University, Littauer Center 209 617-496-5067, [email protected] 617-496-6455, [email protected]
Professor Oliver Hart Professor John Campbell Harvard University, Littauer Center 220 Harvard University, Littauer Center 213 617-496-3461, [email protected] 617-496-6448, [email protected]
Professor Adi Sunderam Harvard Business School, Baker Library 359 617-495-6644, [email protected]
Teaching and Research Fields: Corporate Finance, Contract Theory, Financial Intermediation
Teaching Experience: Fall 2013 & Ec1723, Capital Markets, Harvard University Fall 2014 Teaching Fellow for Professor John Campbell (Head Teaching Fellow, Fall 2014)
Spring 2014 Ec970, Understanding Finance and the Crisis, Harvard University Main Instructor (designed and taught sophomore tutorial)
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2012 Harvard University, Research Assistant for Professor Jerry Green 2010-2011 Oliver Wyman, Consultant, Financial Services Practice, New York 2007-2009 Cornell University, Research Assistant for Professor Ronald Ehrenberg
Professional Activities: Referee for the Quarterly Journal of Economics Conference Presentations: 2014, Master Class with Professor Lars Hansen at 5th Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Economic Sciences 2014, North American Summer Meetings of the Econometric Society, Minnesota
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2015-2016 Harvard University Dissertation Completion Fellowship 2015 Olin Business School Best Finance Ph.D. Dissertation Award in honor of Professor Stuart I. Greenbaum 2014-2015 Macro Financial Modeling Group Fellowship 2014 Invited participant, 5th Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Economic Sciences 2014 Hirtle Callagan Prize 2014 Danielian Travel and Research Grant 2012-2013 Harvard University Graduate Student Fellowship 2011-2012 The Government of India Fellowship in Honor of Amartya Sen
Job Market Paper: “Why do bank-dependent firms bear interest-rate risk?”
Abstract: Firms vary widely in the extent to which they are exposed to interest rates through floating-rate debt. I document that bank dependence is the key driver of this exposure: banks largely lend to firms at floating rates, which disproportionately affects firms that are more dependent on bank lending. In turn, I argue that banks lend to firms at floating rates because they themselves have floating-rate liabilities. Indeed, banks with more floating-rate liabilities make more floating-rate loans. To rule out the alternative interpretation that bank-dependent firms demand floating-rate loans, I show that banks with more floating-rate liabilities also hold more floating-rate securities (which would only add risk if banks found floating-rate loans risky), and quote lower prices for floating- rate loans relative to fixed-rate loans (which points to supply rather than demand, as these banks make more floating-rate loans). My results highlight a previously unexplored mechanism for the transmission of monetary policy to firms. They also establish an important link between the way financial intermediaries are funded and the types of contracts used by non-financial firms.
Research Papers in Progress: “Do insurers’ derivatives portfolios help understand how Quantitative Easing works?” “How is the likelihood of fire sales affected by the interaction of multiple bank regulations?” with Vijay Narasiman “What are reference rates for?”
Updated November 2015
ANNIE LIANG http://scholar.harvard.edu/aliang [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Home Contact Information 1805 Cambridge St. 1534 Cambridge St. Cambridge, MA 02138 Cambridge, MA 02139 Littauer Center, 318 (217) 721-5926
Personal Information Date of birth: May 14, 1990 Citizenship: USA
Undergraduate Studies S.B. in Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011 S.B. in Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011
Graduate Studies Harvard University, 2011 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Economics Thesis Title: Economic Theory and Statistical Learning Expected Completion Date: June, 2016
References: Professor Drew Fudenberg Professor Jerry Green Littauer Center 310 Littauer Center 326 617-496-5895, 617-495-3950, [email protected] [email protected]
Professor David Laibson Professor Sendhil Mullainathan Littauer Center M-12 Littauer Center M-18 617-496-3402, 617-496-2720, [email protected] [email protected]
Teaching and Research Fields Primary Field: Theory Secondary Fields: Behavioral Economics, Machine Learning
Teaching Experience Fall 2012-2013 2010a Economic Theory (graduate) Teaching Fellow for Eric Maskin Spring 2013-2014 2030 Psychology and Economics (graduate) Teaching Fellow for David Laibson, Sendhil Mullainathan, and Andrei Shleifer Fall 2014 – 2015 2010a Economic Theory (graduate) Teaching Fellow for Jerry Green Spring 2014-2015 2030 Psychology and Economics (graduate) Teaching Fellow for David Laibson and Andrei Shleifer
Research Experience and Other Employment Summer 2011 Research assistant for Jerry Green
Professional Activities Referee: Quarterly Journal of Economics Other: Workshop on Complexity and Simplicity in Economics (2015), Jerusalem School in Economic Theory (2013), Russell Sage Foundation Summer Institute in Behavioral Economics (2012)
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships 2015-2016 Roger L. Martin Cornerstone Graduate Student Fellowship Fund 2015-2016 Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Harvard University 2013 LEAP Research Grant, Harvard University 2013 Simon Kuznets Travel & Research Grant, Harvard University 2011-present Harvard University Graduate Research Fellowship
Job Market Paper “Games of Incomplete Information Played by Statisticians”
The common prior assumption is a convenient restriction on beliefs in games of incomplete information, but stands in conflict to evidence that agents publicly disagree in many economic environments. This paper proposes a foundation for heterogeneous beliefs in games, in which disagreement arises not from different information, but from different interpretations of common information. I model players as statisticians who use models to infer unknown payoffs from data. Players know that they may use different models (and, therefore, may disagree about the distribution of payoffs), but the set of possible models is common knowledge. Using this framework, I study the robustness of solutions to the common prior assumption. The main results characterize which rationalizable actions and which Bayesian Nash equilibria persist given finite quantities of data, and at what rate agents learn these solutions. I suggest a new criterion for equilibrium selection based on statistical complexity—solutions that are “hard to learn” are selected away.
Other Papers “The Theory is Predictive, but is it Complete? An Application to Human Perception of Randomness,” with Jon Kleinberg and Sendhil Mullainathan.
When we test a theory using data, it is common to focus on correctness: do the predictions of the theory match what we see in the data? But we also care about completeness: how much of the predictable variation in the data is captured by the theory? This question is difficult to answer, because in general we do not know how much “predictable variation” there is in the problem. In this paper, we propose the use of machine learning algorithms as a means of constructing a benchmark level for the best attainable level of prediction. We illustrate this approach on the task of prediction of human-generated random sequences. Relative to an atheoretical machine learning algorithm benchmark, we find that existing behavioral models explain roughly 10 to 15 % of the predictable variation in this problem. This fraction is robust across several datasets, including experimental data from Mechanical Turk and field data on loan officer approvals (Chen et al., 2015). These results suggest that (1) there is a significant amount of structure in this problem that our models have yet to capture and (2) machine learning may provide a generally viable approach to testing completeness.
“Interpretation of Inconsistent Choice Data: How Many Context-Dependent Preferences are There?” (Submitted.)
Inconsistencies in choice data may emerge either from context dependencies in preference or from stochastic choice error. These inconsistencies are quite different, and have distinct implications for welfare assessment and prediction. How can the analyst separate the two in data? This paper provides a tool for identifying the number of context-dependent preferences in noisy choice data. Using the technique of statistical regularization, I define a best multiple- ordering rationalization as one that maximizes fit to the data subject to a penalty on the number of orderings used. I show that although recovery of the orderings themselves is an ill-posed problem, exact recovery of the number of context-dependent orderings is feasible with probability exponentially close to 1 (in quantity of data) using the proposed approach.
GUILHERME LICHAND http://scholar.harvard.edu/glichand [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617 -496-9126 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617 -496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617 -495-1190
Office Contact Information Home Contact Information Harvard Littauer Center, G-5 1534 Cambridge Street, Apartment #1 Department of Economics Cambridge, MA, 02139 Cambridge, MA, 02138 617-899-9286 ______
Undergraduate and previous Graduate studies: MS in Economics, Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2010. BA in Economics at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil, highest honors, 2007. ______
Graduate studies: Harvard University, 2011 – Present PhD candidate in Political Economy and Government Thesis title: “Essays in Development Economics” Expected completion date: June 2016
References:
Professor Sendhil Mullainathan Professor Nathan Nunn Littauer Center M-18, Cambridge, MA, 02138 Littauer Center M-25, Cambridge, MA, 02138 Phone: 617-496-2720, [email protected] Phone: 617-496-4958, [email protected]
Professor Edward Glaeser Littauer Center 315A, Cambridge, MA, 02138 Phone: 617-495-0575, [email protected] ______
Teaching and Research Fields: Fields: Development Economics, Behavioral Economics, Political Economy
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Teaching Experience: Spring, 2015 Advanced Microeconomic Analysis, Harvard Kennedy School, teaching fellow for Professor Estelle Cantillon Spring, 2009 Graduate Microeconomics, Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, teaching fellow for Professor Rodrigo Soares ______
Research Experience and Other Employment: Jun – Aug/14 World Bank, Consultant for the Urban Anchor, Washington, DC Oct/13 – now MGov, Founder (www.mgovinternational.com) Jan/13 – now World Bank, Consultant for Rural Development projects, Brazil Mar/10 – Jun/11 World Bank, Research Analyst, Brasília, Brazil ______
Awards and fellowships: 2015-16 Dissertation Completion fellowship, Harvard University 2015 Omidyar research grant (US$100,000), Fundação Lemann 2015 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation research grant (US$150,000), Yale Savings and Payments Research Fund at Innovations for Poverty Action 2015 Bradley Foundation award 2014 Top-10 Brazilian innovator under 35 and Social Innovator of the year, MIT Technology Review 2014 Person of the year fellowship, Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce 2013-14 Lab for Economic Applications and Policy research grant (US$10,000), Harvard University 2013-14 John C. Coatsworth fellowship, Harvard University ______
Peer-reviewed Publications: LICHAND, Guilherme, and Rodrigo SOARES (2014) “Access to justice and entrepreneurship: evidence from Brazil’s Special Civil Tribunals”. Journal of Law and Economics, 57(2), May 2014. ______
Non-peer-reviewed Publications: LICHAND, Guilherme (2010) “Decomposing the effects of CCTs on entrepreneurship”. World Bank’s Impact Evaluation Series, No. 46. ______
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Research Papers: “Insurance against cognitive droughts” (Job Market Paper, with Anandi Mani, University of Warwick)
ABSTRACT: This paper tests whether worrying about rainfall risk impairs farmers’ decision- making, through worse cognition. Behavioral theories predict that worries could impose a psychological tax on farmers, reducing the quality of their decisions and, in turn, leading to material consequences at all times and across all states of nature – even when negative rainfall shocks do not materialize down the line. Using a novel technology to run lab experiments in the field, we combine survey experiments and recent rainfall shocks to estimate the effects of worrying about rainfall risk on farmers’ cognition. We find that worries about rainfall increase farmers’ cognitive load and their susceptibility to a variety of behavioral biases. In theory, insurance could mitigate those effects by alleviating the material consequences of rainfall risk. To test this hypothesis, we randomly assign offers of an index insurance product, and find that it does not affect farmers’ worries about rainfall, cognitive load or susceptibility to biases. These results suggest that farmers’ anxiety might be relatively difficult to alleviate.
“Is corruption good for your health? (with Marcos Lopes, CEPESP/FGV, and Marcelo Medeiros, Pontificial Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro)
ABSTRACT: Is corruption good or bad? If corruption is a tax on government expenditures, then deterring it would channel resources towards public service delivery. If, however, corruption induces effort by bureaucrats, then deterring it might actually hurt public services. This paper exploits an anti-corruption program in Brazil, designed by the federal government to enforce guidelines on earmarked transfers to municipalities, to answer this question. Combining the randomness of audits with a differences-in-differences strategy, we find that the anti-corruption program dramatically decreased corruption within health transfers. However, health outputs and outcomes did not improve as a result. Evidence from audited amounts suggests that, after the program, procurement comes to a halt: lower corruption can be entirely attributed to lower public spending. ______
Research in Progress:
“Forecasting rainfall: are farmers Bayesian? Evidence from Northeast Brazil” (with Anandi Mani, University of Warwick)
ABSTRACT: While higher insurance take-up remains a challenge in the developing world, more accurate rainfall forecasts could play the same role (Rosenzweig and Udry, 2014). In practice, there are multiple sources of rainfall forecasts, with wide variation in accuracy, and it is unclear how farmers weigh in different sources to form expectations. This paper randomly assigns information about the local accuracy of alternative sources of rainfall forecasts and documents how doing so affects farmers' perceived reliability of each source, and their expectations about rainfall throughout the rainy season. We track farmers’ expectations weekly over SMS, and incentivize correct forecasts for truthful reporting. Results are forthcoming.
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“Parenting into the tunnel: the psychological effects of poverty on parental engagement” (with Nina Cunha, Stanford University)
ABSTRACT: This paper investigates whether poverty affects parenting, through cognition function. While there is evidence that low-cost interventions can significantly improve parenting, trickling-down to better student behavior and outcomes at school, such interventions have much weaker effects among the most disadvantaged families. One hypothesis for why that might be is that poverty impedes cognitive function (Mani et al, 2013), capturing poor parents’ attention, memory and impulse control. We test this hypothesis by running lab experiments to measure parents’ executive functions. This psychological theory also predicts that poverty should enhance focus, by making poor parents relatively better at tasks framed in monetary terms. To test this hypothesis, we design a low-cost intervention aimed at improving parental engagement, delivering weekly text messages (SMS) to support best parenting practices in Brazil over 8 months of the school year. We develop two versions of this intervention – one that frames the consequences of good parenting in monetary terms, and one that does not – and randomly assign parents to either version of the treatment or to a control group. We then test the focus enhancement mechanism, by comparing parents in the monetary framing treatment to those in the neutral framing one, and to those in the control group. Results are forthcoming.
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BENJAMIN B. LOCKWOOD scholar.harvard.edu/bblockwood [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Home Contact Information Littauer Center 35 Greenwich Park, Apt 2 1805 Cambridge Street Boston, MA 02118 Cambridge, MA 02138 (208) 610-1800 (208) 610-1800
Undergraduate Studies: B.A., Economics, Philosophy. Amherst College, summa cum laude, 2008.
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2010 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Business Economics Thesis Title: “Essays in Optimal Taxation” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
References: Professor Raj Chetty Professor Emmanuel Farhi Stanford Department of Economics Harvard Department of Economics (617) 744-9492, [email protected] (617) 496-1835, [email protected]
Assistant Professor Nathaniel Hendren Professor David Laibson Harvard Department of Economics Harvard Department of Economics (617) 496-3588, [email protected] (617) 496-3402, [email protected]
Associate Professor Matthew Weinzierl Harvard Business School (617) 495-6697, [email protected]
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary fields: Public Economics Secondary fields: Behavioral Economics, Computational Economics
Teaching Experience: Fall 2012, 2013 Econ 10a (Principles of Micro), teaching fellow for Professor Gregory Mankiw Spring 2013, 2014 Econ 10b (Principles of Macro), teaching fellow for Professor Gregory Mankiw Spring 2015 Econ 1030 (Psych & Econ), teaching fellow for Professor David Laibson
Other Employment: 2008–2010 Columbia Business School, Economics Research Coordinator
Professional Activities: Presentations: Carnegie Rochester NYU Conference on Public Policy (2015), American Economic Association Annual Meeting (2015), National Tax Association Annual Meeting: Santa Fe (2014), Meeting of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare (2014), National Tax Association Annual Meeting: Tampa (2013), Princeton Social Choice and Public Economics Workshop (2013), National Tax Association Annual Meeting: Providence (2012)
Referee Service: American Economic Review (2015), Quarterly Journal of Economics (2015), Econometrica (2015), Journal of Public Economics (2015, 2014, 2013), Journal of Political Economy (2014), AEJ: Policy (2015), Journal of Economic Inequality (2015), FinanzArchiv/Public Finance Analysis (2015), Economics of Transition (2014), Economica (2013)
Other: University of Chicago, Price Theory Summer Camp (2013)
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2015–2016 Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Harvard University 2015–2016 Sandra Ohrn Family Graduate Student Dissertation Fellowship 2014, 2015 Certificates of Distinction in Teaching: Psychology and Economics, Principles of Economics – Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard University 2010–2013 Beinecke Scholarship for Graduate Studies
Publications: “Positive and Normative Judgments Implicit in U.S. Tax Policy, and the Costs of Unequal Growth and Recessions” (with Matthew Weinzierl) Journal of Monetary Economics, forthcoming.
“De Gustibus non est Taxandum: Heterogeneity in Preferences and Optimal Redistribution” (with Matthew Weinzierl) Journal of Public Economics, 124 (2015): pp. 1051–1061.
“Stuck in the Middle: Impacts of Grade Configuration in Public Schools” (with Jonah Rockoff) Journal of Public Economics, 94 (2010): pp. 1051–1061.
Research Papers: “Optimal Income Taxation with Present Bias” (Job Market Paper) Abstract: Work often entails up-front costs in exchange for delayed benefits: one must search for a job before becoming employed, paychecks are typically delayed by a few weeks, and a promotion may come only after months or years of extra effort. A growing body of evidence documents present bias over labor supply in the face of such delays. This paper extends the benchmark model of optimal income taxation to allow for present biased workers. I derive expressions for optimal tax rates as a function of observable elasticities and present bias, conditional on income. Present bias lowers optimal marginal tax rates, with a larger effect when the elasticity of taxable income is high. If labor commitment contracts are feasible, tax rates depend on the residual uncorrected degree of present bias. Under unrestricted contracts, sophisticated workers can fully commit and no correction is needed; however if firms cannot fine workers who quit, residual bias may remain, especially at low incomes. I calibrate present bias across incomes using existing empirical evidence on time inconsistency. To allow for commitment, I present new estimates of residual bias using subjective well-being trends following US welfare reforms in the 1990s. All evidence suggests bias is concentrated at low incomes. Numerical simulations show that for modest redistributive preferences, optimal marginal tax rates are substantially negative across low incomes, comparable to those under the Earned Income Tax Credit in the US.
“Taxation and the Allocation of Talent”, Revise and Resubmit (2nd round): Journal of Political Economy, August 2015 (with Charles Nathanson and Glen Weyl) Abstract: Taxation affects the allocation of talented individuals across professions by blunting material incentives and thus relatively magnifying the non-pecuniary benefits of pursuing a “calling.” Estimates from the literature suggest that high-paying professions pursued by these individuals have negative externalities while low-paying professions have positive externalities. A calibrated model therefore finds total wealth maximized among profession-uniform taxes by subsidies on middle class incomes and realistic taxes on the rich. Profession-targeted subsidies are more effective and optimally large. These results are robust to many structural assumptions, but depend crucially on externality estimates and substitution patterns across professions, which merit greater empirical study.
“Regressive Sin Taxes” (with Dmitry Taubinsky) Abstract: How should governments structure tax policy in the presence of both consumer mistakes and large wealth inequality? A common objection to “sin taxes”—commodity taxes intended to correct overconsumption of harmful goods—is that many such taxes are regressive, falling largely on low income consumers. This paper extends the literature on “internality taxes”—taxes intended to correct overconsumption due to consumer misoptimization—by studying the interaction between corrective and redistributive motives, and shows how these motives can either dampen or amplify each other. We derive general, elasticity-based formulas for optimal taxes, and we show that the optimal tax can be computed as a function of a few estimable sufficient statistics: the price elasticity of demand, and the covariances between consumer bias, demand elasticities, and consumers’ incomes. We show that these covariances determine whether the optimal sin tax rises, falls, or becomes negative (a “sin subsidy”) as redistributive motives increase. We also show that the dependence of the optimal tax on these covariances is unique to internality taxation, and does not apply to externality taxation (including targeted externalities). Finally, we extend our analysis to the optimal use of nonsalient tax instruments and to the role of persuasive advertising, such as graphic warning labels, and we present conditions under which such unconventional policy instruments are strictly superior to corrective taxes. Quantitatively, we apply our model to cigarette taxes, and we use numerical simulations to trace out optimal tax policy as a function of consumer bias, the strength of redistributive motives, and the demand elasticity. We show that for the range of elasticities typically documented in empirical work, the optimal cigarette tax remains positive, but is significantly dampened by redistributive concerns.
FILIPPO MEZZANOTTI http://scholar.harvard.edu/filippo [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Home Contact Information Harvard Business School 41 Linnaean Street, Apartment 31 Office of Doctoral Programs Cambridge, MA 02138 Wyss House 102, Boston, MA 02163 617-390-6965
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2011 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Business Economics Thesis Title: “Essays in Corporate Finance” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
Fulfillment of M.B.A Requirement, Harvard Business School, Finance and Entrepreneurship, 2014 A.M. Economics, Harvard University, 2014 M.Sc. Economics, Università Commerciale “Luigi Bocconi”, summa cum laude, 2010
References: Professor Josh Lerner Professor David Scharfstein Rock Center 314, Harvard Business School Harvard Business School, Baker Library 363 617-495-6065, [email protected] 617-495-6882, [email protected]
Professor Andrei Shleifer Professor Jeremy Stein Littauer Center M-9, Harvard University Harvard University, Littauer Center 209 617-495-5046, [email protected] 617-496-6455, [email protected]
Undergraduate Studies: B.A. Economics, Università Commerciale “Luigi Bocconi”, summa cum laude , 2008 Visiting Student in Economics, Dartmouth College, Fall 2007
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary fields: Corporate Finance and Entrepreneurship
Teaching Experience: Spring, 2015 Corporate Finance and Banking (Ph.D.), Harvard University, Teaching Fellow for Professor David Scharfstein and Professor Jeremy Stein Spring, 2014 Corporate Finance (undergrad.), Harvard University, Teaching Fellow for Professor Fausto Panunzi
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2014 Visiting Scholar, Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy Department, Bank of Italy (short periods) 2012 Research Assistant, Professor Josh Lerner 2010-2011 Visiting Pre-Doctoral Scholar, Department of Finance, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University 2009-2010 Research Assistant, IGIER, Università Commerciale “Luigi Bocconi”
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships:
2015 Best Finance PhD Award, the 12th Annual Corporate Finance Conference, Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis 2013 to present Harvard Graduate School Fellowship 2014 Lab for Economic Applications and Policy (LEAP) grant 2012-2013 Harvard University Summer Fellowship 2011-2013 Bonaldo Stringher Scholarship, Bank of Italy 2008-2010 Bocconi Graduate Merit Award
Professional Activities:
Referee: Journal of Banking and Finance
Job Market Paper:
“Roadblock to Innovation: The Role of Patent Litigation in Corporate R&D”
The recent spike in patent litigation raises concerns about the ability of the current intellectual property system to effectively promote innovation. Using a difference-in-difference design around the 2006 Supreme Court decision “eBay vs. MercExchange,” I examine how patent enforcement can reduce the negative effects of litigation on firms’ innovation. This ruling was intended to curb abusive patent lawsuits by providing more flexibility in the way courts remedy patent violations. I estimate the causal impact of the decision by comparing firms that were differentially affected by the shock, measured by exogenous firm-level exposure to patent litigation before 2006. Across a large sample of innovative firms, the decision led to an increase in the quality and quantity of patenting and, for public firms, in R&D investment. Then, I show that patent litigation reduces investment in innovation by lowering the returns from R&D and by exacerbating financing constraints. This evidence confirms that patent litigation plays an important role in hindering innovation, and therefore that adjustments in the enforcement of patent law can have sizable effects on R&D.
Additional Research Papers:
“Sovereign Debt Exposure and Bank Lending Channel: Impact on the Credit Supply and the Real Economy”, with Margherita Bottero and Simone Lenzu
We examine the transmission of a bank balance sheet shock to corporate credit and its effects on investments and employment. Using detailed loan level data matching firms and banks in Italy, we show that the exogenous shock to sovereign securities held by financial intermediaries, which was triggered by the Greek bailout (2010), was passed on to firms through a contraction of credit supply. The contraction of credit supply was similar in size for both large and small firms. However, it led to a reduction in investment and employment only for the smaller firms, especially those which rely heavily on external financing. These effects were further exacerbated by the geographical segmentation of the credit market. Investigating the heterogeneity of the bank lending channel across financial intermediaries, we found a sharper tightening of credit supply among banks closer to the regulatory capital constraint. We conclude that the interaction of banks' and firms' balance sheet is crucial for understanding the transmission of credit supply shocks to the real economy.
“Bank Failure and the Manufacturing Sector during the Great Depression”, with James Lee
Using newly-digitized, city-industry-year level records from the 1923-1937 US Censuses of Manufactures, we examine the influence of the financial sector on the real economy. We do so in the context of the Great Depression, a period in which many banks were suspended and the manufacturing sector, which comprised 30 percent of the US economy, declined significantly. In our research design, we measure whether industries with high levels of pre-Depression external finance dependence declined in employment, output, and establishment growth by more than industries with low levels of pre- Depression external finance dependence from 1929-1933, in cities with higher 1929-1933 bank suspension rates. We control for city-time shocks, industry-time shocks, and other, non-financial industry characteristics interacted with bank suspension rates. We find that high external finance dependence industries contracted by 21 to 27 percent more than low external finance dependence industries following bank suspensions. For robustness, we instrument for bank suspensions with a measure of trust - religious fragmentation - and a measure of real estate price growth. Given the pre- Depression share of high external finance industries and the magnitude of the 1929-1933 bank suspensions, we estimate that approximately 22 percent of the total decline in manufacturing employment from 1929-1933 was due to the banking crisis. We conclude with evidence that the negative effects of the banking shock persisted into the late 1930s on the establishment outcome.
“Capital Destruction and Economic Growth: Evidence from Sherman’s March.” with James Lee and James Feigenbaum (NBER DEA poster session 2014)
What was the economic impact of General William Sherman’s 1864-65 military march through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina? How does local economic activity respond in the short and long run to capital and infrastructure destruction? We match an 1865 US War Department map of Sherman’s march to detailed county level demographic, agricultural, and manufacturing data from US Censuses, 1850-1920 to show that agricultural and manufacturing output fell relatively more in Sherman counties compared to non-Sherman counties in the same state following the march, and that some of the agricultural declines persisted through 1920. The relative declines do not appear to be driven by differential out-migration, demographic patterns, or long-lasting infrastructure destruction. Instead, with newly-digitized data on local banks and access to credit, we show that the declines were more severe in counties nearer to larger financial disruptions.
Research in Progress:
“Private Equity, Financial Strategy, and the Crisis”, with Shai Bernstein and Josh Lerner
“Portfolio Spillovers in Venture Capital: Evidence from Patent Litigation”
“The Crowding Out Effect of Portfolio Re-Allocations: Evidence from Sovereign Markets”, with Margherita Bottero and Simone Lenzu
VLADIMIR MUKHARLYAMOV http://scholar.harvard.edu/mukharlyamov [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information:
Littauer Center, 1805 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Office/Cell: 857-225-4418
Date of birth: June 9th, 1988
Undergraduate and Masters Studies:
M.Sc., Finance and Economics, London School of Economics, Distinction, 2009 2nd overall performance out of 80+ students
B.Sc., Economics, University of London International Programmes, First Class Honors, 2008 1st overall performance out of 10,000+ students
B.Sc., Economics, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, First Class Honors, 2008 1st overall performance out of 100+ students
Graduate Studies:
Harvard University, 2009 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Economics Thesis Title: “Essays in Corporate Finance” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
References: Professor Andrei Shleifer Professor Paul Gompers Harvard University, Littauer Center Harvard Business School, Baker Library 617-495-5046, [email protected] 617-495-6297, [email protected]
Professor Efraim Benmelech Northwestern University, Kellogg 847-491-4462, [email protected]
Research and Teaching Fields:
Corporate Finance, Venture Capital, Innovation, Bankruptcy, Behavioral Finance, Real Estate
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Teaching Experience:
Spring, 2014 Behavioral Finance (graduate), Harvard University, TF for Prof. Andrei Shleifer Spring, 2012 Corporate Finance (graduate), Harvard University, TF for Prof. Efraim Benmelech Spring, 2012 Corporate Finance (undergrad), Harvard University, TF for Prof. Efraim Benmelech Spring, 2012 Principles of Economics: Macro, Section Leader for Prof. Greg Mankiw Fall, 2011 Principles of Economics: Micro, Section Leader for Prof. Greg Mankiw
Other Employment and Research Experience:
2013 SAC Capital Advisors, Economist 2009–2010 Research Assistant to Glen Weyl, Harvard Society of Fellows 2008 Deutsche Bank, Summer Analyst
Professional Activities:
Presentations: NBER Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Meeting (2015) AFA Private Equity (2015) AFA Ethical Norms in Finance (2015) Kauffman Foundation Early-Stage Investing Conference (2013)
Refereeing: Quarterly Journal of Economics
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships:
2015 Harvard Dissertation Completion Fellowship 2009 Harvard GSAS PhD Scholarship 2008 Lord Dahrendorf Scholarship, London School of Economics 2008 Gerstenberg Prize in Economics, London School of Economics
Publications:
Gompers, Paul, Steven Kaplan, & Vladimir Mukharlyamov, “What Do Private Equity Firms Say They Do?” Journal of Financial Economics, Forthcoming.
Gompers, Paul, Vladimir Mukharlyamov, & Yuhai Xuan, “The Cost of Friendship,” Journal of Financial Economics, Forthcoming.
Job Market Paper:
“Beyond the Corner Office: Employee Characteristics and Bank Performance” Using a novel dataset that allows me to capture the education and career trajectory of over 250,000 employees of 225 bank holding companies, I find that banks with shorter employee tenures and higher fractions of MBAs and top school graduates performed more poorly during the Great Recession. This relationship is driven by the predisposition of these banks to take on greater risk. The effect is stronger in banks that pursue aggressive strategies and in banks with low exposure to the housing bubble. These same workforce measures also explain banks’ performance in the 1998 crisis. Taken together, my results suggest that these workforce measures could be a step towards quantifying components of risk culture or strategy that contribute to financial institutions’ vulnerability to crisis.
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Other Working Papers:
“The Agglomeration of Bankruptcy” (with Efraim Benmelech, Nittai Bergman, and Anna Milanez) Conferences: Adam Smith Corporate Finance Conference at London Business School (2014) Edinburgh Corporate Finance Conference (2014) This paper identifies a new channel through which bankrupt firms impose negative externalities on non- bankrupt peers. The bankruptcy and liquidation of a retail chain weakens the economies of agglomeration in any given local area, reducing the attractiveness of retail centers for remaining stores and leading to contagion of financial distress. We find that companies with greater geographic exposure to bankrupt retailers are more likely to close stores in affected areas. We further show that the effect of these externalities on non-bankrupt peers is higher when the affected stores are smaller and are operated by firms with poor financial health.
“Gender Effects in Venture Capital” (with Paul Gompers, Emily Weisburst, and Yuhai Xuan) Management Science, Revise & Resubmit We explore gender differences in performance in a comprehensive sample of venture capital investments in the United States. We find that investments led by female venture capitalists have significantly lower success rates than their male colleagues, controlling for personal characteristics including employment and educational history as well as the characteristics of the portfolio companies in which they invest. Our results demonstrate that investment outcomes are, on average, a function of the track records of the individual venture capitalist, the venture capitalist’s colleagues within the firm, and the individual venture capitalist’s co-investors outside the firm. We find no difference in the skill of female venture capitalists. The differences in male and female venture capitalists’ investment outcomes are largely attributable to female venture capitalists’ inability to capitalize on the track records of their colleagues within their firms. Performances differences disappear in older, larger venture capital firms and firms with other female investors. This supports the view that formal feedback mechanisms and hierarchies are potentially useful in ameliorating the female performance gap.
Other Publications:
“What Private Equity Investors Think They Do for the Companies They Buy” (with Paul Gompers and Steven Kaplan), Harvard Business Review, June 2015.
“The Agglomeration of Bankruptcy” (with Efraim Benmelech, Nittai Bergman, and Anna Milanez), The NBER Digest, November 2014.
"United Capital Partners" (with Paul Gompers and Daniel Kim), Harvard Business School Case, September 2012. This case examines a proposed growth equity investment in a Russian fashion retail chain.
Media Coverage:
Research has received media coverage in outlets such as Bloomberg, The Economist, the Financial Times, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal.
3
MIKKEL PLAGBORG-MØLLER http://scholar.harvard.edu/plagborg [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David M. Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information: Littauer Center, 1805 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Cell phone: 617-893-0359
Personal Information: Date of Birth: September 3, 1987 Nationality: Denmark
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2010 to present PhD candidate in Economics Expected Thesis Title: “Essays in Macroeconometrics” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
References: Professor James H. Stock (committee chair) Professor Gary Chamberlain Littauer Center M-27 Littauer Center 123 Department of Economics, Harvard U. Department of Economics, Harvard U. [email protected], 617-496-0502 [email protected], 617-495-1869
Professor Gita Gopinath Professor Neil Shephard Littauer Center 206 Littauer Center M-29 Department of Economics, Harvard U. Department of Economics, Harvard U. [email protected], 617-495-8161 [email protected], 617-495-5496
Undergraduate Studies: 2006–2009 Bachelor of Science, Mathematics-Economics, University of Copenhagen 2008–2009 Exchange student, College of Arts and Science, New York University
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary field: Econometrics Secondary fields: International Macroeconomics, Monetary Economics
Teaching Experience: Spring 2015 Financial Econometrics (graduate), Harvard, for Prof. Neil Shephard Awarded Certificate of Distinction in Teaching Fall 2014 Time Series Analysis (graduate), Harvard, for Prof. James H. Stock Awarded Certificate of Distinction in Teaching Spring 2014 Introd’n to Applied Econometrics (graduate), Harvard, for Prof. Gary Chamberlain Awarded Certificate of Distinction in Teaching Spring 2014 International Finance (graduate), Harvard, for Prof. Gita Gopinath Qualified for Certificate of Distinction in Teaching Spring 2013 Introd’n to Applied Econometrics (graduate), Harvard, for Prof. Stefan Hoderlein Awarded Certificate of Distinction in Teaching Spring 2013 International Finance (graduate), Harvard, for Prof. Gita Gopinath Qualified for Certificate of Distinction in Teaching Fall 2012 Introd’n to Econometrics (undergraduate), Harvard, for Prof. Rainer Winkelmann
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2012–2015 National Bureau of Economic Research, Research Assistant, Prof. Gita Gopinath 2011–2012 National Bureau of Economic Research, Research Assistant, Prof. James H. Stock 2009–2010 Danmarks Nationalbank (Central Bank of Denmark), Student Helper 2009–2010 University of Copenhagen, Research Assistant, Prof. Peter Norman Sørensen
Referee Service: Bernoulli, Econometrica, Economic Journal, Macroeconomic Dynamics, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Review of Economic Studies
Awards and Scholarships: 2013–2015 Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Harvard University (awarded four times) 2013 International Research Grant, Harvard University Department of Economics
Job Market Paper: “Bayesian Inference on Structural Impulse Response Functions” Abstract: I propose to estimate structural impulse responses from macroeconomic time series by doing Bayesian inference on the Structural Vector Moving Average representation of the data. This approach has two advantages over Structural Vector Autoregressions. First, it imposes prior information directly on the impulse responses in a flexible and transparent manner. Second, it can handle noninvertible impulse response functions, which are often encountered in applications. To rapidly simulate from the posterior of the impulse responses, I develop an algorithm that exploits the Whittle likelihood. The impulse responses are partially identified, and I derive the frequentist asymptotics of the Bayesian procedure to show which features of the prior information are updated by the data. I demonstrate the usefulness of my method in a simulation study and in an empirical application that estimates the effects of technological news shocks on the U.S. business cycle.
Peer-Reviewed Publications: “Empirical Evidence on Inflation Expectations in the New Keynesian Phillips Curve” (with Sophocles Mavroeidis and James H. Stock), Journal of Economic Literature 52(1), 2014, 124–188 Abstract: We review the main identification strategies and empirical evidence on the role of expectations in the New Keynesian Phillips curve, paying particular attention to the issue of weak identification. Our goal is to provide a clear understanding of the role of expectations that integrates across the different papers and specifications in the literature. We discuss the properties of the various limited-information econometric methods used in the literature and provide explanations of why they produce conflicting results. Using a common dataset and a flexible empirical approach, we find that researchers are faced with substantial specification uncertainty, as different combinations of various a priori reasonable specification choices give rise to a vast set of point estimates. Moreover, given a speci- fication, estimation is subject to considerable sampling uncertainty due to weak identification. We highlight the assumptions that seem to matter most for identification and the configuration of point estimates. We conclude that the literature has reached a limit on how much can be learned about the New Keynesian Phillips curve from aggre- gate macroeconomic time series. New identification approaches and new datasets are needed to reach an empirical consensus.
“Consistent factor estimation in dynamic factor models with structural instability” (with Brandon J. Bates, James H. Stock, and Mark W. Watson), Journal of Econometrics 177(2), 2013, 289–304 Abstract: This paper considers the estimation of approximate dynamic factor models when there is temporal insta- bility in the factor loadings. We characterize the type and magnitude of instabilities under which the principal components estimator of the factors is consistent and find that these instabilities can be larger than earlier theoretical calculations suggest. We also discuss implications of our results for the robustness of regressions based on the estimated factors and of estimates of the number of factors in the presence of parameter instability. Simulations calibrated to an empirical application indicate that instability in the factor loadings has a limited impact on estima- tion of the factor space and diffusion index forecasting, whereas estimation of the number of factors is more sub- stantially affected.
“A note on proper scoring rules and risk aversion” (with Alex Peysakhovich), Economics Letters 117, 2012, 357–361 Abstract: When risk averse forecasters are presented with risk neutral proper scoring rules, they report probabilities whose ratios are shaded towards 1. If elicited probabilities are used as inputs to decision-making, naive elicitors may violate first-order stochastic dominance.
Other Publications: “New Calculation of Danmarks Nationalbank’s Effective Krone-Rate Index” (with Erik Haller Pedersen), Danmarks Nationalbank Monetary Review, 2nd Quarter 2010, 139–144
Research Papers in Progress: “Monetary Policy Spillovers and Cross-Border Banking” Abstract (preliminary): How does monetary policy spill over to other countries? The recent empirical literature has shown that U.S. monetary policy affects global credit conditions by influencing the risk-taking of cross-border banks. I develop a tractable general equilibrium model that features (1) nominal rigidities, (2) banking frictions, and (3) non-trivial risk. Banks accept risk-free deposits from households and extend risky credit to firms in multiple countries. A Value-at-Risk constraint limits banks’ ability to take risks. Monetary policy easings in large countries increase bank leverage and risk, thus influencing credit conditions globally even with flexible nominal exchange rates. Central banks in small countries face a trade-off between managing their terms of trade and neutralizing global credit spillovers. To test the predictions of the model, I estimate the effects of U.S. monetary policy shocks on global credit aggregates and macroeconomic outcomes. I impute monetary policy shocks by combining high- frequency futures data with a high-dimensional daily financial panel dataset.
“An Empirical Bayes Approach to Seasonal Adjustment with Time‐Varying Seasonals” (with James H. Stock)
“Identification of Large Factor Models Through Nonparametric External Instruments”
“Semiparametric Inference About Long-Run Risks” (with Benjamin Hébert)
“Smooth Predictive Impulse Responses”
Updated October 26, 2015
Guillaume Allaire Pouliot scholar.harvard.edu/pouliot [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information: Littauer Center 1805 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA 02138
Undergraduate Studies: Honors B.A., University of Chicago, June 2010 Thesis Title: "Compromised Randomization in Abecedarian Preschool Program Experiment" (Lawrence G. Goldberg Honors Thesis Prize) Advisor: James J. Heckman
M.S. in Statistics, June 2010 (Concurrent) Thesis Title: "Statistical Issues in Visual Field Analysis" Advisor: Debashis Mondal
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2010 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Economics Thesis Title: “Applications of Statistical Machine Learning and Spatial Statistics in Economics” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
References: Professor Gary Chamberlain (committee chair) Professor Edward Glaeser Harvard University Harvard University [email protected], (617) 495-1869 [email protected], (617) 495-0575
Professor Elie Tamer Professor Neil Shephard
Harvard University Harvard University [email protected], (617) 496-1526 [email protected], (617) 495-5496
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary fields: Econometrics and Statistics, Applied Econometrics Secondary fields: Applied Microeconomics, Statistical Machine Learning, Optimization Teaching Experience: Fall 2015 Teaching fellow, Econometric Methods (advanced undergrad), Harvard, for Elie Tamer Spring 2014 Teaching fellow, Econometric Methods (advanced undergrad), Harvard, for Gary Chamberlain Spring 2014 Teaching fellow, Econometrics II (grad core sequence), Harvard, for Gary Chamberlain Fall 2013 Teaching fellow, Introduction to Econometrics, Harvard, for Jeffrey Miron Spring 2013 Teaching fellow, Econometric Methods (grad), Harvard, for Guido Imbens Fall 2012 Teaching fellow, Introduction to Econometrics, Harvard, for Eric Chaney Spring 2012 Teaching fellow, Econometric Methods (grad), Harvard, for Guido Imbens Spring 2010 Teaching fellow, Intermediate Statistics, University of Chicago, for David Degras Fall 2009 Teaching fellow, Intermediate Statistics, University of Chicago, for Linda Collins
Research Experience and Other Employment: Summer 2011 University of Chicago, research assistant for Mathias Drton (University of Chicago, Statistics)
Summer 2009 University of Chicago, research assistant for Azeem Shaikh
2007—2008 University of Chicago, research assistant for James Heckman
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2010 to present Ashford Fellowship
2006—2010 University Scholarship, Phi Beta Kappa
Research: “Spatial Econometrics for Misaligned Data” (Job Market Paper) Abstract: In economics, many data sets providing the specific location of households, firms, villages, or other economic units are matched by location to data with geographic features such as rainfall in order to study their economic impact. These data sets are often misaligned: the locations of observations in both datasets do not generally coincide. In this article, I study a class of regression problems with spatially correlated variables. This includes regression analysis with misaligned data. I introduce a quasi-maximum likelihood estimator as well as a more robust companion method which does not require specification of the regression error covariance. For both methods, I obtain new central limit theorems for spatial statistics, which are of independent interest. I propose computational strategies and investigate their performance. In simulation, I find that the methods I recommend, along with the asymptotic distribution theory I derive, yield more reliable estimates and confidence intervals than previously recommended methods. In the reanalysis of two datasets, I find that the suggested methods yield quantitatively and qualitatively different conclusions. “Equivalence of Multicategory SVM and Simplex Cone SVM” Abstract: I show that the multicategory SVM (MSVM) of Lee, Yin, and Wahba (2004) is equivalent to the Simplex Cone SVM of Mroueh, Poggio, Rosasco, and Slotine (2012). Leveraging that result, I obtain finite-dimensional kernel asymptotic distribution theory for multicategory SVM and compare asymptotic covariance matrices to explain analytically the impressive comparative performance of the One-vs-Rest SVM procedure for multicategory data. I display a case in which it is strictly more efficient than MSVM.
“Simplex Monte Carlo and Fast MCMC Sampling of Bootstrap Distribution” Abstract: I develop a Monte Carlo method for sampling the empirical bootstrap distribution of certain robust estimators. Specifically, I suggest using a Metropolis-Hastings algorithm to sample the bootstrap distribution of estimators whose loss function, such as the check or hinge loss, implies a discrete support for the estimated coefficient. This article focuses on the case of quantile regression. In order to construct a suitable proposal distribution, I generalize the dynamics of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo and apply them to sampling the bootstrap distribution of estimators which are the solution of a linear program.
“Data Mining the Hair in your Soup” (joint with Mike Luca, Presented at the Joint Statistical Meeting) Abstract: The city of San Francisco has a limited number of sanitation inspectors and many restaurants to inspect. It is more efficient to send inspectors to restaurants which are more likely to get caught for sanitation norm violations. We take up the task of predicting which restaurants these are. Our dataset consists of a comprehensive list of San Francisco restaurants, their general characteristics, their Yelp reviews (provided by Yelp), as well as past inspection records. Using a supervised latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic model, we improve prediction accuracy using the information from Yelp reviews, and produce interpretable natural language processing (NLP) output. We study the comparative performance of inference output using Gibbs sampling and variational inference.
“Existence of Maximum Likelihood for Directed Acyclic Graphs” (with Mathias Drton and Christopher Fox) Abstract: In this paper, we give the necessary and sufficient number of observations required for the Gaussian maximum likelihood estimator of any directed (acyclic or cyclic) graphical model to be bounded.
“Latent subcategories for support vector machines” (with Jules Marchand-Gagnon) Abstract: One way to accommodate very different feature descriptions for the same category is to use a flexible kernel. However, if the differences in features within a category are well divided into few clusters of the features, allowing for latent subcategories can yield a good fit while avoiding issues of overfitting. We suggest a semi-supervised approach, latent subcategory SVM (LS2VM), which learns unlabeled subcategories within labeled categories, allowing for accurate classification using more categories but less flexible (even linear) kernels. The resulting optimization problem is a mixed-integer problem, but is exactly equivalent to a difference-convex program. We give a fast algorithm for implementation, and compare performance with Bayesian approaches.
“Probabilistic SVM and Fast MCMC Sampling of Bootstrap Distributions” Abstract: I show that, when using multicategory support vector machines, more accurate out-of- sample predictions may be obtained by using a decision rule which accounts for the variability of the separating hyperplane. In order to evaluate such a decision rule, I suggest a fast procedure which relies on a variant of the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo algorithm to sample the bootstrap distribution of the multicategory support vector machine decision function. In simulations and applications on benchmark datasets, I find that the precision of predictions can improve substantially, especially for points distant from the bulk of the training set. THOMAS Y. POWERS http://scholar.harvard.edu/tpowers [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Contact Information 77 HBS Mail Center Boston, MA 02163 Cell phone: 484-343-4671
Undergraduate Studies: B.S., Applied Mathematics, Yale University, 2009
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2011 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Business Economics Thesis Title: “Essays on International Finance and Asset Pricing” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
References: Professor John Campbell (Chair) Professor Kenneth Rogoff Harvard Department of Economics Harvard Department of Economics 617-496-6448, [email protected] 617-495-4022, [email protected]
Professor Luis Viceira Assistant Professor Matteo Maggiori Harvard Business School Harvard Department of Economics 617-495-6331, [email protected] [email protected]
Teaching and Research Fields: International Finance, Asset Pricing, Macroeconomics, Corporate Finance
Teaching Experience: Fall 2013 Capital Markets (introductory quantitative finance), Harvard College, teaching fellow for Professor John Campbell
Other Employment: 2009-11 Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Quantitative Investment Strategies, Analyst 2007 Reuters, Search and Navigation, Summer Analyst
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2014 Derek Bok Center Award for Excellence in Teaching, Harvard College 2011-15 Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Fellowship, Harvard University
Professional Activities: Presentations Trans-Atlantic Doctoral Conference, LBS (2014), Asia-Pacific Risk and Insurance Association Conference, NUS (2010)
Discussions Trans-Atlantic Doctoral Conference, LBS (2014)
Refereeing Quarterly Journal of Economics
Research Papers: “The Commodity Currency Puzzle” (Job Market Paper)
Commodity-exporting countries have persistently high real interest rates and currency excess returns. To explain this fact, I appeal to a classic idea: labor cost disease. Commodity booms raise wages in exporter countries, and thus make local goods and services less affordable, raising the cost of living (real exchange rate). Because the real exchange rate moves procyclically with commodity prices, it inherits a commodity risk premium that resolves the puzzle. Using a rare-disaster setup, I show that a stochastic, international business cycle model, with local labor used as a factor of production, can quantitatively match observed commodity currency risk premia. The model’s predictions about the co-movement of commodity prices and exchange rates, the cross-section of risk premia, and the dynamics of labor costs, are also consistent with the data. Finally, to understand the impact of monetary policy, I build a New Keynesian, sticky-wage extension. Policy choices (for example, a credible peg) can reduce the risk premium on the real exchange rate, but at the cost of bigger output gaps.
Research Papers in Progress: “Expected Returns on Real Investments: Evidence from the Film Industry.”
Using a proprietary, project-level dataset on the film industry, I study a cross-section of expected returns on real investments. Unlike most corporate projects, films have cost and profit data, are fairly uncorrelated with the market, and are not subject to selective reporting. Idiosyncratic risk seems priced, as suggested by a matching model with costly external finance. A $1 MM increase in volatility raises expected return by at least 43 basis points.
Older Publications: “Fourier-Analytic Measures for Heavy-Tailed Insurance Losses” (with Michael R. Powers) Scandinavian Actuarial Journal, 2014.
“Risk Finance for Catastrophe Losses with Pareto-Calibrated Lévy-Stable Severities” (with Michael R. Powers) Risk Analysis, 2012.
FRANCISCO QUEIRO [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler DCUTLER @FAS .HARVARD .EDU 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart OHART @HARVARD .EDU 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet BPIQUET @FAS .HARVARD .EDU 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information National Bureau of Economic Research 434 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 617-417-4175
Pre-Doctoral Studies : B.A., Law, Portuguese Catholic University (UCP), 2002 M.B.A., Harvard Business School, 2007
Doctoral Studies : Ph.D. in Business Economics , Harvard University, 2015 Thesis Title : “Essays on Entrepreneurship and Innovation”
References : Professor Andrei Shleifer Professor Josh Lerner Harvard University, Littauer Center Harvard Business School, Rock Center 617-495-5046, [email protected] 617-495-6065, [email protected]
Professor Larry Katz Professor Alberto Alesina Harvard University, Littauer Center Harvard University, Littauer Center 617- 495-5148, [email protected] 617-495-8388, [email protected]
Postdoctoral Fellowship National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2015 to present Postdoctoral Fellow in Entrepreneurship
Teaching and Research Fields : Primary fields: Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Applied Microeconomics Secondary fields: Historical Development, Political Economy
Teaching Experience: Spring, 2012 Political Economy, Harvard University, Teaching Fellow for Professor Andrei Shleifer
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2008-2009 National Bureau of Economic Research, Research Assistant for Professor Andrei Shleifer 2007-2008 McKinsey & Company, Associate 2002-2005 McKinsey & Company, Business Analyst 2002 Government of Portugal, Advisor to the Minister of Science and Higher Education
Research Papers: “The Effect of Manager Education on Firm Growth” Job Market Paper Entrepreneurship is an important driver of economic growth, but entrepreneurial performance is highly heterogeneous and little is known about its determinants. This paper investigates the relationship between manager education and firm employment growth using administrative data on the universe of firms and workers in Portugal. I find that firms that switch to more educated managers experience a sharp increase in growth relative to comparable firms, and that this is unlikely to be driven by sorting of more educated managers into firms with better growth prospects. I also present evidence that indicates the effect is driven by education itself rather than other manager characteristics correlated with education. I find that the effect is stronger in high tech sectors and for managers with degrees in engineering, science, health and business. In addition, more educated managers hire higher quality workers, increase the use of incentive pay, reduce worker turnover and are more likely to report that their products and services are new and incorporate new technologies. These findings suggest that the effect operates through technology adoption and human resource management. I conclude by calibrating a model of firm dynamics to explore the aggregate implications of differences in manager education. Moving from the distribution of manager education in Portugal to that of the U.S. would raise aggregate productivity by about 20 percent, accounting for one third of the gap in output per capita between the two countries.
“Knowledge and Growth: Evidence from Early Modern Europe” I investigate the relationship between knowledge diffusion and city growth using a new database of 5.5 million books published in Europe from 1450 to 1800. The database consists of individual book data drawn from over 72,000 library catalogs around the world, including most major national and research libraries. Exploiting within-city variation, I find that book production is a strong predictor of subsequent population growth. I then distinguish between possible interpretations of this relationship using information on book subjects. I find that the results are robust for books on technology, finance, medicine and history, with technology and finance having the largest coefficients. In addition, although science books as a whole are not statistically significant, books on chemistry and geology are also significant predictors of growth, a finding that is consistent with the important roles of chemistry and coal mining during the Industrial Revolution. Books on other topics, such as religion or literature, are not associated with growth, suggesting that the findings reflect the diffusion of knowledge rather than literacy or consumption.
JONATHAN RHINESMITH http://scholar.harvard.edu/rhinesmith/ [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Harvard University, Department of Economics 1805 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 Phone: 301-807-6127
Personal Information: DOB: July 16, 1986; Citizenship: U.S.A.
Undergraduate Studies: B.A., Yale University, Economics & Mathematics, Physics, magna cum laude, distinction in both majors, 2008
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2011 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Economics Thesis Title: “Essays in Financial Economics” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
References: Professor John Campbell Professor Jeremy Stein Littauer Center 213 Littauer Center 209 (617) 496-6448 (617) 496-6455
[email protected] [email protected]
Professor Lauren Cohen Professor Christopher Malloy Rock Center 321, Harvard Business School Baker Library 277, Harvard Business School (617) 495-3888 (617) 495-4383 [email protected] [email protected]
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary fields: Finance, Asset Pricing Secondary fields: Corporate Finance, Macroeconomics
Teaching Experience: 2015, Spring Econ 1760: Undergraduate Behavioral Finance, TA for Prof. Owen Lamont 2014, Spring Econ 1760: Undergraduate Behavioral Finance, TA for Prof. Owen Lamont, awarded “Certificate of Distinction in Teaching” 2013, Fall Econ 2725: Graduate Corporate Finance, TA for Profs. Robin Greenwood and David Scharfstein 2013, Fall Econ 1123: Undergraduate Intro to Econometrics, TA for Prof. Eric Chaney
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2014 Goldman Sachs, Summer Associate, Investment Strategy Group, Investment Management Division 2012 Harvard University, Research Assistant for Professor Emmanuel Farhi 2008-2011 Yale Investments Office, Senior Financial Analyst Absolute return and domestic equity manager selection and analysis Asset allocation modeling and research 2007 Ellington Management Group, Summer Analyst, Leveraged Loan Desk
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2015 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Dissertation Fellow 2014 Hirtle Callaghan prize 2011-2013 Harvard University Graduate Fellowship 2011 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Honorable Mention 2008-2011 CFA Institute, passed all three levels of the Chartered Financial Analyst exam
Research Papers: “Conviction and volume: measuring the information content of hedge fund trading” (Job Market Paper)
Abstract: I provide novel evidence that hedge funds predict and partially drive the movement of asset prices towards fundamental value. Willingness to move prices, proxied by the share of trading volume consumed, reveals information: the volume consumed by quarterly hedge fund trades strongly predicts future stock returns. The top decile of purchases generates abnormal returns of 5-9% annualized during the following quarter (t-stat 4.4-6.5). I interpret this phenomenon using the Kyle model of price impact and test for the empirical patterns one should observe if informed (hedge fund) trades incorporate information into prices. Informed trading impounds earnings news prior to its release, reducing the reaction to positive earnings announcements by 28%. Informed trading also positively predicts contemporaneous price movement and future informed trading. These price movements show no tendency to reverse. In contrast, mutual fund trades are significantly less informative. Structural and reduced-form estimates imply trading 1% of quarterly volume generates 0.3%-0.5% of price impact. Price impact suggests that one must examine asset prices before a fund’s first trade to properly account for the information that a fund incorporates into prices.
“Doubling Down” (working paper)
Media Coverage: Matt Levine, Bloomberg View; Alpha Architect
Abstract: When hedge funds “double down” on positions that have run against them, they outperform. A portfolio of the U.S. equity positions that hedge fund managers add to after recent stock-level underperformance generates abnormal returns of 5%-15% annualized. This finding is not the result of a simple reversal effect, of a fund’s best ideas (large positions), or of the general informativeness of fund trades. My results are consistent with a career risks mechanism. By adding to a losing position – the opposite of window dressing – a manager makes her losses particularly salient. I confirm in panel regressions that investment managers avoid adding to losing positions. Furthermore, managers outperform by more when they double down after greater past losses in a position. These findings suggest a position- level limits to arbitrage effect. When an asset’s price decreases for non-fundamental reasons, investment managers with the most relevant knowledge may not trade against the mispricing because they have already suffered losses in that asset.
“Stock Experts” (working paper)
Abstract: Many investment managers develop company-specific expertise about a subset of the firms within their potential investment universes. Within their long equity portfolios, hedge fund managers disproportionately reestablish large positions in stocks that they have held in the past. A portfolio of expert positions purchased after stock-level price drops generates abnormal returns of 5%-10% annualized. Comparable control portfolios fail to outperform. The existence of experts highlights the network of investment relationships: both the level and distribution of capital impacts capital formation.
“Slow trading and long-horizon information ” (in progress)
BRYCE MILLETT STEINBERG http://scholar.harvard.edu/steinberg [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Home Contact Information Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs 244 Chestnut Street 111 Thayer Street, box 1960 Cambridge, MA, 02139 Brown University Mobile: 413-205-6861 Providence, RI, 02912
Undergraduate Studies: A.B., Brown University, Economics (with honors), 2009
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2010-2015 Ph.D. in Business Economics Thesis Title: “On the Demand for Human Capital in India”
References: Professor Michael Kremer Professor Edward Glaeser Littauer Center M-20 Littauer Center 315A 617-495-9145, [email protected] 617-496-0575, [email protected]
Associate Professor Nava Ashraf 32L, Department of Economics, LSE [email protected]
Current Appointment: Postdoctoral Fellow, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, 2015-present
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary fields: Development Economics, Labor Economics Secondary fields: Public Economics, Health Economics, Urban Economics
Teaching Experience: Spring, 2013 EC 970, Harvard, “The Economics of Health and Education” Fall, 2015 ECON 1315, Brown, “Health, Education, and Social Policy”
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2009-2010 Becker Center, University of Chicago, Research Professional
Professional Activities: Referee for: American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Urban Economics, Quarterly Journal of Economics, World Bank Economic Review
Program Committee for: NEUDC, 2015
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2015-2016 Watson Postdoctoral Fellowship in Public Policy 2013-2015 Bradley Foundation Fellowship
Publications: “Do IT Service Centers Promote School Enrollment? Evidence from India”, Journal of Development Economics, 104: p. 123-135 (September, 2013). (with Emily Oster)
Job Market Papers:
“Drought of Opportunities: Contemporaneous and Long-Term Impacts of Rainfall Shocks on Human Capital”, Under revision for Journal of Political Economy, August 2015 (with Manisha Shah)
Higher wages are generally thought to increase human capital production, particularly in the developing world. We introduce a simple model of human capital production in which investments and time allocation differ by age. Using data on test scores and schooling from rural India, we show that higher wages increase human capital investment in early life (in utero to age 2) but decrease human capital from ages 5-16. Positive rainfall shocks increase wages by 2% and decrease math test scores by 2-5% of a standard deviation, school attendance by 2 percentage points, and the probability that a child is enrolled in school by 1 percentage point. These results are long-lasting; adults complete 0.2 fewer total years of schooling for each year of exposure to a positive rainfall shock from ages 11-13. We show that children are switching out of school enrollment into productive work when rainfall is higher. These results suggest that the opportunity cost of schooling, even for fairly young children, is an important factor in determining overall human capital investment.
“Workfare and Human Capital Investment: Evidence from India” (with Manisha Shah)
We examine the effect of India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), one of the largest workfare programs in the world, on human capital investment. Since NREGS increases labor demand, it could increase the opportunity cost of schooling, lowering human capital investment even as incomes increase. We exploit the staged rollout of the program across districts for causal identification. Using a household survey of test scores and schooling outcomes for approximately 2.5 million rural children in India, we show that each year of exposure to NREGS decreases school enrollment by 2 percentage points and math scores by 2% of a standard deviation amongst children ages 13-16. In addition, we show that while the impacts of NREGS on human capital are similar for boys and girls, adolescent boys are primarily substituting into market work when they leave school while adolescent girls are substituting into unpaid domestic work. We find mixed results for younger children. We conclude that anti-poverty programs which raise wages could have the unintended effect of lowering human capital investment.
Other Working Papers: “Water, Health, and Wealth” (with Nava Ashraf, Edward Glaeser, and Abraham Holland)
This paper estimates the impact of water supply disruptions on disease and economic activity in Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia. We link supply-related complaints to the Lusaka water company, which are common, with data on disease in related clinics. We find that in months when there are more, and more severe, breaks, the number of diarrhea-related cases increases. More surprisingly, we also find a modest increase in respiratory diseases and pneumonia, perhaps because of decreased hygiene, and a small, but statistically significant, increase in infant mortality. We also link water supply complaints to economic transactions that occur through Zoona, the dominant provider of phone-based banking in Lusaka, which is a primary financial tool for the poor. We find that there are fewer Zoona transfers in weeks with more complaints, suggesting that water breaks reduce economic activity. It is unclear whether this reduction in economic activity is driven by illness, or increased time spent finding alternative sources of water.
Works in Progress:
“Brains, Brawn, and Investment in Schooling” (with Martin Rotemberg)
DANIEL M. SULLIVAN https://scholar.harvard.edu/dsullivan [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information 1805 Cambridge St., Rm 200 Cambridge, MA 02138 Cell phone number: 480-208-4913
Undergraduate Studies: B.S., Economics and Mathematics, Brigham Young University, magna cum laude, 2010
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2011 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Economics Thesis Title: “Essays in Public and Labor Economics” Expected Completion Date: June 2016
References: Professor David Cutler Professor Edward Glaeser Littauer 327, Harvard University Littauer Center 315A, Harvard University 617-496-9126, [email protected] 617-495-0575, [email protected]
Professor Lawrence Katz Professor Robert Stavins Littauer 224, Harvard University Harvard Kennedy School, Mailbox #11 617-495-5148, [email protected] 617-495-1820, [email protected]
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary fields: Public Economics, Environmental Economics, Real Estate Secondary fields: Labor Economics, Urban Economics, Health Economics
Teaching Experience: Spring 2014 Econ 1123, “Introduction to Econometrics,” Harvard College, head teaching fellow for Professor Jeffrey Zabel Fall 2013 Econ 1011a, “Intermediate Microeconomics: Advanced,” Harvard College, head teaching fellow for Professor Edward Glaeser Fall 2008 Econ 110, “Economic Principles and Problems,” Brigham Young University, teaching assistant for Professor James Kearl Spring 2008 Econ 380, “Intermediate Price Theory 1,” Brigham Young University, teaching assistant for Professor Rulon Pope
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2014– Harvard College, Dunster House, Resident Tutor in Economics and Sophomore Advisor 2012–2013 Harvard University, Research assistant for Professor David Cutler 2010–2011 NBER, Research assistant for Professor David Autor 2010 Brigham Young University, Research assistant for Professor Val Lambson 2008–2010 Brigham Young University, Research assistant for Professor Frank McIntyre 2008–2009 Brigham Young University, Research assistant for Professor Rulon Pope
Professional Activities: Referee: Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Urban Economics Presentations: ALEA Law and Economics Conference, Columbia University (2011)
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2013– NBER Pre-doctoral Fellowship in Aging and Health Economics 2015 Harvard Lab for Economic Applications and Policy Research Grant
Publications:
“Lawyers Steer Clients Toward Lucrative Filings: Evidence from Consumer Bankruptcy.” 2015. American Law and Economic Review 17(1):245–289 (with Frank McIntyre and Laura Summers).
Research Papers:
“The Cost of Air Pollution: Evidence from House Prices and Migration” (Job Market Paper) Abstract: Estimates of the value of clean air based on hedonic models of house prices typically have been surprisingly low compared to the best available evidence on pollution's health costs. I show that these valuations of pollution's costs are likely to be downward biased by two factors: (1) measurement error due to pollution's irregular spatial distribution which is not resolved with commonly used instruments; and (2) home buyers' inability to detect less visible forms of pollution. To address measurement error issues, I use administrative data on all major polluters in greater Los Angeles and an atmospheric dispersion model to precisely measure how each firm impacts the air around each house. To overcome endogeneity concerns, I use the California Electricity Crisis of 2000, which acted through a cap-and- trade market in southern California to suddenly and permanently lower exposure to NOx and its derivative ozone for houses previously affected by major polluters. I estimate the marginal willingness to pay for a one unit reduction in NOx-related exposure is $3,272, an order of magnitude larger than past estimates and more consistent with the expected health benefits. However, house prices respond almost exclusively to NOx, which is visible, and not ozone, which is invisible but more toxic. I also find migration and residential sorting responses to changes in air pollution with newly clean neighborhoods gaining more high-income and high-education residents but experiencing a decline in overall population relative to comparable areas not impacted by the Crisis.
“Long-term Income Stagnation Among the Bankrupt” with Frank McIntyre
Research Papers in Progress:
“Air Pollution, Infant Health, and Housing Markets” “Tipping Points and Sabotage: A Model of Segregated Labor Markets and Multi-city Sorting” “Statistical Discrimination and Socio-linguistic Markers: Evidence from Juries and Court Translators” “Leaded Gasoline, Leaded Air, and Violent Behavior” with James Feigenbaum “Herding, Expert Advice, and Market Learning: Evidence from Movie Critics and Box Office Returns” with Jonathan Libgober “The Impact of IT Incentives on Health Care” with David Cutler
KENTARO TOMOEDA scholar.harvard.edu/ktomoeda [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information: Littauer Center 1805 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA 02138 617-952-1619
Undergraduate Studies: B.A., Economics, University of Tokyo, 2008
Graduate Studies: M.A., Economics, University of Tokyo, 2010 Harvard University, 2010 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Economics Thesis Title: “Essays in Mechanism and Market Design” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
References: Professor Eric Maskin Professor Edward Glaeser Littauer Center, Room 312 Littauer Center, Room 315A 617-495-1746, [email protected] 617-495-0575, [email protected]
Professor Scott Duke Kominers Littauer Center, Room 309 617-496-2614, [email protected]
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary fields: Game Theory, Microeconomic Theory Secondary fields: Labor Economics
Teaching Experience: Spring 2015 & Ec1123 (Introduction to Econometrics), Harvard University, teaching fellow for Fall 2013 Professor Eric Chaney Spring 2014 & Ec1010a (Microeconomic Theory), Harvard University, teaching fellow for Fall 2012 Professor Marc Melitz Spring 2013 Ec1818 (Economics of Discontinuous Change), Harvard University, teaching fellow for Professor Richard Freeman Spring 2010 Undergraduate Game Theory, University of Tokyo, teaching assistant for Professor Akihiko Matsui Fall 2009 Graduate Microeconomics, University of Tokyo, teaching assistant for Professor Michihiro Kandori Spring 2009 Math Program for the First Year Graduate Students, University of Tokyo
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2008-2010 Research assistant at Tokyo Foundation
Professional Activities: Presentations: Osaka University (2015), Kyoto University (2015, 2010), Kyoto Summer Workshop on Applied Economics (2014), Waseda Game Theory Workshop (2009), Summer Workshop on Economic Theory (2009)
Refereeing: Journal of Public Economic Theory
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2015-2016 Harvard University Dissertation Completion Fellowship 2012-2015 Harvard University Teaching Fellowship 2010-2012 Murata Overseas Scholarship
Publications: “Gakko-sentaku-sei no Design: Game Riron Approach (Design of School Choice Mechanisms: Game Theory Approach)” (2010), with Toshiji Kawagoe, Fuhito Kojima, Yusuke Narita, Takahiro Sato, Hirokazu Takizawa and Yosuke Yasuda, NTT Publishing (In Japanese).
Research Papers: “Implementation of Efficient Investments in Mechanism Design” (Job Market Paper) Abstract: This paper studies the question of when we can eliminate investment inefficiency in a general mechanism design model with transferable utility. We show that when agents make investments only before participating in the mechanism, inefficient investment equilibria cannot be ruled out whenever an allocatively efficient social choice function is implemented. We then allow agents to make investments before and after participating in the mechanism. When ex post investments are possible and an allocatively constrained-efficient social choice function is implemented, efficient investments can be implemented in subgame-perfect equilibria if and only if the social choice function is commitment-proof (a weaker requirement than strategy-proofness). Commitment-proofness ensures the efficiency of investments by suppressing the agents' incentives to make costly ex ante investments, which may work as a commitment device. Our result implies that in the provision of public goods, subgame-perfect implementation of efficient investments and efficient allocations is possible even given a budget-balance requirement.
“Auctions That Implement Efficient Investments” Abstract: This article analyzes the implementability of efficient investments for two commonly used mechanisms in single-item auctions: the first-price auction and the English auction. We allow uncertain ex ante investment and further ex post investment. We model the cost of uncertain investment naturally, as the expected cost of the realized deterministic investments. Under private values, we show that both the first-price auction and the English auction implement efficient investments in equilibrium.
“Controlled School Choice with Hard Bounds: Existence of Fair and Non-wasteful Assignments” Abstract: In the model of controlled school choice employing type specific constraints with lower bounds and upper bounds, it is known that the set of feasible and fair assignments may be empty. This paper proposes a sufficient condition for the existence of feasible assignments that are fair and non- wasteful: the priority orders for the same type students are common across schools. We introduce an algorithm called Controlled Student Proposing Deferred Acceptance Algorithm with Reproposal (CDAAR), which always finds a feasible, fair and non-wasteful assignment under this condition.
“Credible Stability in the Roommate Problem” (with Yusuke Kasuya) Abstract: Stable matching, which plays a significant role in matching theory, generally fails to exist in the roommate problem. We propose a weaker but still compelling stability concept called credible stability. At a credibly stable matching, for any deviation, there is a further deviation that results in a (weakly) worse consequence for some agent in the first deviation compared to the initial matching. We show that there always exists a weakly Pareto efficient credibly stable matching in the roommate problem.
Research Papers in Progress: “Inducing Efficient Class Selection: Priority Design in Department-Student Matching” “Living Arrangement and Female Labor Supply in Japan Revisited”
GAL WETTSTEIN http://scholar.harvard.edu/gwettst [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Home Contact Information Harvard University 22 Abbey Rd. Littauer Center 200 Unit 3 1805 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Boston, MA, 02135 617-763-5237
Personal Information: Date of Birth: 04/06/1983 Citizenship: USA
Undergraduate Studies: BA, Economics and Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Summa Cum Laude, 2008
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2010 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Economics Thesis Title: “Essays on Public Insurance” Expected Completion Date: May, 2016
References: Professor David Cutler Professor Lawrence Katz Harvard University, Littauer Center Harvard University, Littauer Center 617-496-5216, [email protected] 617- 495-5148, [email protected]
Professor Edward Glaeser Professor Nathaniel Hendren Harvard University, Littauer Center Harvard University, Littauer Center 617-495-0575, [email protected] 617- 496-3588, [email protected]
Teaching Reference: Professor Alberto Alesina Harvard University, Littauer Center 617-495-8388, [email protected]
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary fields: Public Finance, Labor Economics Secondary fields: Health Economics, Political Economy
Teaching Experience: Spring, 2014 Introduction to Econometrics, Harvard University, teaching fellow for Professor Eric Chaney Fall, 2014 Cultural Economics, teaching fellow for Professor Alberto Alesina Spring, 2013 Introduction to Econometrics, Harvard University, teaching fellow for Professor Jeffrey Zabel Fall, 2013 Cultural Economics, teaching fellow for Professor Alberto Alesina Spring, 2012 Economics of National Security Sophomore Tutorial, Harvard University Fall, 2012 Introduction to Econometrics, Harvard University, teaching fellow for Professor Rainer Winkelmann 2008-2009 Introduction to Econometrics, Tel Aviv University, teaching fellow for Dr. Chemi Gotliebovsky and Prof. Analia Schlosser
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2007-2010 Tel Aviv University, research assistant to Dr. Anat Bracha
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2015 Dissertation Fellowship in Retirement Research, the Boston College Center for Retirement Research and the Social Security Administration
Research Papers: “Retirement Lock and Prescription Drug Insurance: Evidence from Medicare Part D” (Job Market Paper) This paper examines whether the lack of an individual market for prescription drug insurance causes individuals to delay retirement. I exploit the quasi-experiment of the introduction of Medicare Part D, which provided subsidized prescription drug insurance to all Americans over age 65 beginning in 2006. Using a differences-in-differences design, I compare the labor outcomes of individuals turning 65 just after 2006 to those turning 65 just before 2006 in order to estimate the causal effect of eligibility for Part D on labor supply. I find that individuals at age 65 who would have otherwise lost their employer-sponsored drug insurance upon retirement decreased their rate of full- time work by 8.4 percentage points due to Part D, in contrast to individuals with retiree drug insurance even after age 65 for whom no significant change was observed. This reduction was composed of an increase of 5.9 percentage points in part-time work and 2.5 percentage points in complete retirement. I use these estimates to quantify the extent of the distortion due to drug insurance being tied to employment, and the welfare gains from the subsidy correcting that distortion. The results suggest that individuals value $1 of drug insurance subsidy as much as $3 of Social Security wealth.
“Differential Crowd-Out among the Elderly by Risk Aversion” I utilize Health and Retirement Survey data around the time of introduction of Medicare Part D prescription drug insurance for the elderly in order to estimate crowd-out of private prescription drug insurance. I use individuals between the ages of 55 and 64, who are not eligible for the program, as a control group relative to individuals aged 65 to 75, who are eligible. I take a differences-in-differences approach to estimation by comparing outcomes before and after 2006, when Medicare Part D went into effect. Exploiting unique questions eliciting risk aversion in the Health and Retirement Survey, as well as information on whether individuals have other kinds of insurance, and engage in risky behaviors I construct measures of risk aversion. I find substantial differential crowd-out effects by risk aversion: every standard deviation increase in risk aversion was associated with about 3 percentage points less crowd-out, over a baseline crowd-out rate of 60%.
Research Papers in Progress: “Press Coverage and Local Fiscal Multipliers”
YAO ZENG http://scholar.harvard.edu/yaozeng [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-495-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Littauer Center, 1805 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA 02138 617-999-6596
Graduate Studies Harvard University, 2010 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Economics Thesis Title: Essays in Financial Intermediation and Markets Expected Completion Date: May 2016
References: Professor John Campbell Professor Jeremy Stein Littauer Center 213, Harvard University Littauer Center 209, Harvard University 617-496-6448, [email protected] 617-496-6455, [email protected]
Professor Andrei Shleifer Professor Emmanuel Farhi Littauer Center M-9, Harvard University Littauer Center 208, Harvard University 617-495-5046, [email protected] 617-496-1835, [email protected]
Professor Josh Lerner Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee Rock Center 314, Harvard Business School (Teaching Reference) 617-495-6065, [email protected] Morgan Hall T-34, Harvard Business School 617-495-6454, [email protected]
Undergraduate Studies M.A. in Economics, Peking University, with distinction, 2010 B.A. in Economics, Peking University, with distinction, 2007 B.Tech. in Electronic Science and Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, with distinction, 2007
Teaching and Research Fields Primary fields: Financial Economics, Financial Intermediation and Markets, Corporate Finance Secondary fields: Contract Theory, Entrepreneurial Finance, Networks
Teaching Experience 2013-2015 Research in Macroeconomics, Finance, and Modeling (Econ 985k, Senior Seminar), Harvard University, Instructor Fall 2013 Asset Pricing (Econ 2723, Graduate), Harvard University, Teaching Fellow for Professor John Campbell
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Spring 2013 Macroeconomic Theory (Econ 1011b, Undergraduate), Harvard University, Head Teaching Fellow for Professors David Laibson and Philippe Aghion Fall 2012 Capital Markets (Econ 1723, Undergraduate), Harvard University, Head Teaching Fellow for Professor Alp Simsek 2012-2015 Several short-term MBA and executive courses in Investments and Business Strategies, Harvard Business School, Teaching Assistant for Professors Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Shawn Cole, William Kerr, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee
Research Experience 2014-present US Census Bureau, Special Sworn Researcher 2015 MIT Sloan, Research Assistant for Professor Jonathan Parker 2012-2014 Harvard Business School and NBER, Research Assistant for Professor Josh Lerner
Conference Presentations and Invited Seminars 2015 AFA, FIRS, LBS Summer Finance Symposium, Econometric Society World Congress 2014 SFS Cavalcade, NFA, the 2nd USC Marshall Doctoral Finance Conference, MIT 2013 WFA, the 2nd Wharton Conference on Liquidity and Financial Crises 2011 Columbia University, USC 2010 The 10th Conference of Society of Advancement of Economic Theory 2009 The 6th Conference of Logic, Game Theory and Social Choice
Referee Activities Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Management Science, Finance Research Letters, Economics of Transition
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships 2015 Yihong Xia Best Paper Award, China International Conference in Finance 2015-2016 Chiles Foundation Fellowship, Harvard University 2014, 2015 Derek Bok Certificate of Excellence in Teaching (twice), Harvard University 2013 AFA Doctoral Student Travel Grant 2012-2015 Simon Kuznets Grant (twice) and Danielian Grant (twice), Harvard University 2011-2012 Douglas Dillon Fellowship, Harvard University 2010-2015 Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Fellowship, Harvard University 2007 Distinguished Student of the Nation, Ministry of Education, China (the most prestigious award to college students; 1 out of 250,000 students in a given year) 2005 First Prize, Chinese National College Mathematical Modeling Competition 2002 First Prize, Chinese National Olympiad in Mathematics
Publications “Multi-Agent Inference in Social Networks: A Finite Population Learning Approach,” (with Jianqing Fan and Xin Tong) 2015, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 110, Theory and Methods: 149-158.
Research Papers “A Dynamic Theory of Mutual Fund Runs and Liquidity Management” (Job Market Paper) Media Coverage: Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz, Money, Banking, and Financial Markets
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I develop a model of an open-end mutual fund that invests in illiquid assets and show that shareholder runs can occur even with a fully flexible NAV. The key is the fund’s dynamic management of its cash buffer. Holding more cash at time t helps the fund avoid fire sales of its illiquid assets if it experiences a significant net outflow. However, the need to rebuild the cash buffer at time t+1 after outflows at t implies predictable sales of illiquid assets and hence a predictable decline in NAV. This generates a first-mover advantage at t, leading to shareholder runs. I then study the fund’s optimal dynamic cash policy in the presence of run concerns, which give rise to the following tension. Rebuilding the cash buffer more rapidly at t+1 can trigger runs at t. Yet, lack of cash re-building makes the fund more likely to suffer another round of fire sales in the future. This tension is aggravated by a time-inconsistency problem: the fund may want to pre- commit to a less rapid cash re-building policy to avoid runs but cannot credibly convince the shareholders. Therefore, despite optimal liquidity management, mutual funds are not run-free and runs can lead to higher ex-ante fire sale losses. Appropriate design of policies aiming at reducing the financial stability risks of mutual funds requires taking into account the dynamic interdependence of runs and liquidity management.
“Financing Entrepreneurial Production: Security Design with Flexible Information Acquisition,” with Ming Yang (submitted) WFA (2013), Wharton Conference of Liquidity and Financial Crises (2013), SFS Cavalcade (2014), Finance Theory Group Summer Meeting (2013), CEPR European Summer Symposium in Financial Market (2013), Toulouse TIGER Forum (2013), SAIF Summer Institute of Finance (2014), China International Conference in Finance (2014), Conference of Society of Advancement of Economic Theory (2015) We propose a new theory of the use of debt and non-debt securities in financing entrepreneurial production, positing that the investor can acquire costly information on the entrepreneur's project before making the financing decision. We show that debt is optimal when information is not valuable for production, while the combination of debt and equity is optimal when information is valuable. These predictions are consistent with the empirical facts regarding the finance of private businesses. Flexible information acquisition allows us to characterize the payoff structures of optimal securities without imposing usual assumptions on feasible securities or belief distributions.
“Investment Exuberance under Cross Learning,” with Shiyang Huang Winner of the Yihong Xia Best Paper Award, 2015, China International Conference in Finance AFA (2015), FIRS (2015), LBS Summer Finance Symposium (2015), China International Conference in Finance (2015), Econometric Society World Congress (2015), NFA (2014), USC Marshall Doctoral Finance Conference (2014) We investigate how cross learning by firms amplifies industry-wide investment exuberance. When investing, firms learn from each other’s stock prices to gain more knowledge about a common shock, generating higher investment sensitivity to the shock. Speculators respond by putting more weight on the shock when trading, making prices even more informative about it. This spiral produces higher investment (and price) comovements in investment exuberance. Meanwhile, cross learning generates a new externality by making other firms’ prices less informative about their idiosyncratic shocks. This externality increases in the number of firms, suggesting that more competitive industries may exhibit more inefficient investment exuberance.
“Arbitrage under Liquidity Mismatch: Theory and Evidence from the Authorized Participants of Bond ETFs,” with Kevin Pan We investigate the bond-ETF arbitrage activity of authorized participants (APs) under the natural premise that the underlying bond market is less liquid than the ETF market. We build a model of arbitrage with
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several new implications. First, the liquidity mismatch between the ETF market and the underlying implies that arbitragers with higher inventory costs are less willing to arbitrage across the two markets. Second, due to the unique ability to redeem and create with ETF fund sponsors, AP inventory costs are effectively lower and thus allow APs to arbitrage more relative to comparable non-AP arbitragers. Third, when perceived market volatility is high, APs’ inventory costs become effectively higher because creation and redemptions are less attractive, and hence AP arbitrage activity falls. We find new micro-evidence that is consistent with our model predictions. These findings suggest that the AP arbitrage mechanism works in normal times but may fail in crisis times, thus creating destabilizing effects.
Research in Progress
“Market-Based Macro-Prudential Regulation”
“Corporate Cash in the Shadow,” with Yueran Ma
“Inattentive Valuation and Asset Pricing Anomalies,” with Shiyang Huang
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JOHN C. ZHOU http://scholar.harvard.edu/jzhou [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Home Contact Information Baker Library 344C, Harvard Business School 5 Cowperthwaite St., Apt. 418 Boston, MA 02163 Cambridge, MA 02138 Mobile: 734-748-1468
Personal Information: U.S. Citizen
Undergraduate Studies: A.B., Applied Mathematics/Economics, Harvard University, 2010 Magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa (top 24 of class, Marshal)
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2011 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Business Economics Thesis Title: “Essays in Financial Economics” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
M.B.A. (non-degree), Harvard Business School, completed first semester in Fall 2013 A.M., Statistics, Harvard University, 2010
References: Professor John Y. Campbell Professor Jeremy C. Stein Littauer Center 213, Harvard University Littauer Center 209, Harvard University 617-496-6448, [email protected] 617-496-6455, [email protected]
Professor Robin Greenwood Lecturer Owen A. Lamont Baker Library 267, Harvard Business School Littauer Center 317, Harvard University 617-495-6979, [email protected] 617-495-3442, [email protected]
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary fields: Financial Economics, Macroeconomics Secondary fields: Asset Pricing, Behavioral Finance, Monetary Policy
Teaching Experience: Spring 2014 Statistics 123 (undergraduate-level quantitative finance), Harvard University, Teaching Fellow for Professor Stephen Blyth, 5.0/5.0 teaching evaluation Fall 2012 Economics 2723 (graduate-level asset pricing), Harvard University, Teaching Fellow for Owen A. Lamont, 4.2/5.0 teaching evaluation
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2011-Present Harvard University, Non-Resident Tutor for Winthrop House 2010-2011 Citadel LLC, Junior Trader in the Global Fixed Income Group Summer 2009 National Bureau of Economic Research, Research Assistant for Professor John Y. Campbell Fall 2008 Harvard Business School, Research Associate for Professor David S. Scharfstein Summer 2008 QVT Financial LP, Investment Analyst Summer 2007 Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Herchel Smith Harvard Research Fellow Summers National Institutes of Health, Research Intern 2006, 2004 Summer 2005 Michigan State University, Research student and co-author on U.S. Patent 7468150
Professional Activities Referee for the Journal of Applied Econometrics and the Journal of Banking and Finance
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2011-Present Harvard University Doctoral Fellowship
Research Papers: “Sophisticated Trading and Market Efficiency: Evidence from Macroeconomic News Announcements” (Job Market Paper)
Abstract: This paper studies how the views of sophisticated traders are impounded into stocks and bonds around macroeconomic news announcements. I find evidence that sophisticated traders trade on predictions of macroeconomic news reports before announcements and obtain their informational advantage using public information. Specifically, consensus forecasts of upcoming data releases suffer from anchoring bias and overweight past data releases. By correcting this bias, sophisticated traders can predict news reports. The results suggest that stock and bond markets are inefficient in this setting. Over time, there is a late trading puzzle: sophisticated traders can predict news reports days before announcements but appear to trade these predictions into stock and bond prices just hours before announcements. Across assets there is a related puzzle: the predictable component of news reports is eventually fully impounded into bonds but only partially impounded into stocks. Stocks but not bonds react to announcements of the predictable component and display return momentum. Using a model, I argue that market inefficiency can arise when unsophisticated traders neglect public information that predicts news reports, and risk management concerns deter sophisticated traders from acting on their informational edge. Trading earlier and trading riskier assets such as stocks exposes sophisticated traders to greater risk. As a result, sophisticated traders wait to trade and trade safer assets such as bonds.
“The Good, the Bad, and the Ambiguous: The Aggregate Stock Market Dynamics around Macroeconomic News”
Abstract: Using a representative agent model in which the investor is averse to ambiguity (Knightian uncertainty) and sees an ambiguous piece of news about the fundamental value of a risky asset, I show a number of predictions for the dynamics of stocks around news: Stocks respond more strongly to bad news than to good news, respond positively to neutral news, and increase on average through news. In times of high ambiguity, the magnitudes of each effect is larger, and the volatility of stocks around news changes in a predictable manner as well. I provide empirical evidence consistent with the model by analyzing the high-frequency behavior of the aggregate stock market around macroeconomic news announcements from November, 1997 to March, 2014. The model helps to understand features of the data that challenge existing frameworks; e.g., the findings that the stock market reacts especially strongly to bad news versus good news during crisis periods and that about 1/3 of equity returns in the 17 year sample accrues in the 10 minutes around the release of macroeconomic data. In addition to providing evidence for the role of ambiguity in financial markets generally and in how financial assets reflect macroeconomic shocks specifically, the empirical results also have implications for the behavior of investors. Investors treat bad news as more relevant in bad times than in good times but treat good news the same in good and bad times.
“Asset Price Reactions to News at the Zero Lower Bound”
Abstract: This paper analyzes the reaction of interest rates and the stock market to macroeconomic news announcements (MNAs) at the zero lower bound (ZLB). I start by using a shadow rate term structure model to formulate three predictions for the sensitivity of interest rates to MNAs. First, “better”-than- expected macroeconomic data increases interest rates. Second, as the expected duration of the ZLB increases, whether because economic conditions are worse or because monetary policy changes, interest rates become less sensitive to macroeconomic data. Third, this attenuation in the sensitivity of interest rates is largest for intermediate-maturity rates. I verify these predictions by using a broad sample of MNAs and high-frequency intraday futures data on interest rates. Turning to stocks, I show that the stock market's reaction to MNAs can be decomposed into an interest rate news term that is directly related to interest rates' reaction to MNAs and a cash flow plus risk premium news term. Using the same sample of MNAs and high-frequency intraday futures data on the stock market, I empirically estimate the stock market's sensitivity to macroeconomic data as well as that of the constituent news terms. Based on the interest rate news term alone, the expected duration of the ZLB should increase the sensitivity of stocks to macroeconomic news. The data furthermore suggests that the expected duration of the ZLB decreases the magnitude of the cash flow plus risk premium news term.
Research Paper(s) in Progress:
“Long-Horizon International Portfolio Diversification across Stocks and Bonds” with Luis M. Viceira and Zixuan (Kevin) Wang
Updated November 1, 2015
JACOB WALLACE http://scholar.harvard.edu/jwallace [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Home Contact Information 14 Story St. 21 Upton Street Apt. #3 Cambridge, MA 02138 Cambridge, MA 02139 Office/Cell: (201) 410-6392
Personal Information: Date of birth: 10/15/1983, US Citizen.
Undergraduate Studies: B.A., Economics, Swarthmore College, High Honors/Phi Beta Kappa, 2005
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2010 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Health Policy (Economics Track) Thesis Title: “How do managed care plans manage care? Evidence from public insurance” Expected Completion Date: June 2016
References: Professor Thomas G. McGuire (chair) Professor Benjamin Sommers Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School Harvard School of Public Health 617-432-8514, [email protected] 617-432-3271, [email protected]
Professor David Cutler Professor Michael Chernew Department of Economics, Harvard University Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School 617-496-5216, [email protected] 617-432-0174, [email protected]
Professor Joseph P. Newhouse (teaching ref.) Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School 617-432-1325, [email protected]
Teaching and Research Fields: Primary fields: Health Economics
Secondary fields: Industrial Organization, Public Economics
Teaching fields: Microeconomics, Health Care Policy
Teaching Experience: Spring, 2012 & The Economics of Health Care Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, teaching fellow Spring, 2013 for Professor Joseph Newhouse
Spring, 2013 The Health Care Safety Net & Vulnerable Populations, Harvard School of Public Health, teaching fellow for Professor Benjamin Sommers
January, 2014 & Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, teaching fellow and/or tutorial leader January, 2015 for Professor Haiden Huskamp and Professor Barbara McNeil
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2011 Harvard School of Public Health, Graduate Research Assistant to Professor Meredith Rosenthal 2010 Young Invincibles, Co-founder 2007-2010 New York State Department of Health, Analyst 2005-2006 Cornerstone Research, Analyst
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2015 Jeremy R. Knowles Graduate Student Fellowship Fund 2015 Graduate Society Dissertation Completion Fellowship 2014 Certificate for Excellence in Tutoring, Harvard Medical School 2013 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Student Teaching, Harvard Kennedy School 2013 Certificate of Excellence and Distinction in Teaching, Harvard University 2012 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship 2011 Summer Research Fellowship, Harvard University 2010-2012 Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Pre-doctoral Fellowship
Research Papers: “How Do Provider Networks Impact Welfare? Evidence from Random Assignment to Medicaid HMOs” (Job Market Paper) How do narrow network plans – those that restrict provider choice – affect health care costs, quality and patient satisfaction? Previous attempts to answer this important policy question have been hindered by limitations in data and study design. I use administrative health records and plan choice data for over 100,000 Medicaid recipients in New York to estimate the impact of provider networks on health and health care. To measure the size of physician and hospital networks, I model recipients' demand for providers conditional on needing care and use the estimates to predict their preferences over the different provider networks offered. Exploiting the random assignment of recipients to plans, I find that broader physician networks were associated with significantly higher utilization and spending, improved compliance with recommended preventive care, and increased satisfaction. Broader hospital networks led to improved satisfaction but had no impact on utilization or spending. Regulations that encourage broader networks must account for the tradeoff between increased spending and improved access and quality.
“How are prices set in Medicare Advantage? Evidence from administrative claims data” (with Zirui Song, Hannah Neprash, Teresa Gibson and Michael Chernew) Anecdotal evidence suggests that Medicare Advantage (MA) plans negotiate payment rates to hospitals and physicians that are far below what is paid by commercial insurers when they serve adults under 65. Using Truven Health Analytics data on the health care use and spending of more than a million adults in MA, we find that MA plans pay roughly 100% and 105% of the Traditional Medicare fee schedule for physician and hospital services, respectively. Cross-sectional and fixed effects analyses find little evidence that MA rates are correlated with local market structure or differences in how plans are paid.
Publications: Wallace, J. and B. Sommers (2015). The Dependent Coverage Expansion’s Effect on Health and Access to Care for Young Adults. JAMA Pediatrics, Vol. 196, No. 5
Song, Z., Wallace, J., Neprash, H., McKellar, M., Chernew, M. and M. McWilliams (2015). Medicare Fee Cuts and Cardiologist-Hospital Integration. JAMA Internal Medicine, Vol. 175, No. 7.
Neprash, H., Wallace, J., Chernew, M. and M. McWilliams (2015). Measuring Prices in Health Care Markets Using Commercial Claims Data. Health Services Research.
Song, Z., Ayanian, J., Wallace, J., He, Y., Gibson, T., and M. Chernew (2013). Unintended Consequences of Eliminating Medicare Payments for Consultations. JAMA Internal Medicine, Vol 173. No. 1.
Submitted Papers: Wallace, J. and Z. Song. Spending in Medicare vs. Private Insurance: A Regression-Discontinuity Approach. Under review.
Wallace, J. and B. Sommers. Assessing the Impact of Health Insurance on Prevention and Health: A Methodological Survey of the Literature. Under review.
Research Paper(s) in Progress: “Are all Managed Care Plans Created Equal? Evidence from Random Assignment to Medicaid HMOs” (With Michael Geruso and Timothy J. Layton)
“Income Distortion in Response to Non-Linear ACA Subsidy Incentives: Evidence from the Medicaid Gap” (With Keith Ericson, Aaron Schwartz and Julie Shi)
YUSUF NEGGERS http://scholar.harvard.edu/yneggers [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information 124 Mt. Auburn Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Cell: 205-886-1242
Personal Information: U.S. Citizen
Undergraduate Studies: B.A., Mathematical Economic Analysis, Rice University, cum laude, 2006
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2010 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Public Policy Thesis Title: “Essays in Economic Development and Political Economy” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
M.Sc., International Political Economy, London School of Economics, 2007
References: Professor Rohini Pande (Chair) Professor Alberto Alesina Harvard Kennedy School Harvard Department of Economics 617-384-5267, [email protected] 617-495-8388, [email protected]
Professor Rema Hanna Professor Andrei Shleifer Harvard Kennedy School Harvard Department of Economics 617-496-1140, [email protected] 617-495-5046, [email protected]
Teaching and Research Fields: Development Economics, Political Economy
Teaching Experience: Spring 2013, PED-102: Economic Development, Harvard Kennedy School, Teaching Fellow 2014, 2015 for Professors Rohini Pande, Asim Khwaja, Dani Rodrik (2013), and Lant Pritchett (2014 and 2015)
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2012 World Bank – Indonesia Social Development Team, Short Term Consultant 2007-2010 Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), MIT Department of Economics, Research Associate for Professor Benjamin Olken 2007-2010 World Bank – Indonesia Sustainable Development Team, Short Term Consultant 2004 Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia, Summer Research Assistant Research Funding: 2015 J-PAL Governance Initiative $48,505 (with Siddharth George and Sarika Gupta) Lab for Economic Applications and Policy, Harvard University $10,683 Pershing Square Venture Fund, Foundations of Human Behavior Initiative, Harvard University $5,000 Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University $3,000 2014 J-PAL Governance Initiative $49,934 2013 South Asia Institute, Harvard University $1,500 2012 Weiss Family Fund for Research in Development Economics $10,225
Professional Activities: Presentations: Northeast Universities Development Consortium (NEUDC) 2013, 2015 Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA) 2014 Referee: Quarterly Journal of Economics
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships: 2015-2016 Perini and Cunningham Dissertation Fellowship for International Development, Harvard University 2013-2014 Doctoral Research Fellowship in Sustainability Science, Harvard Kennedy School 2011 Cultural Bridge Fellowship, Harvard Kennedy School 2010-2013 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship 2006 Rimlinger Prize – Best Senior Independent Research in Economics, Rice University
Publications: “Can Electronic Procurement Improve Infrastructure Provision? Evidence from Public Works in India and Indonesia” (with Sean Lewis-Faupel, Benjamin Olken, and Rohini Pande), July 2015. Accepted at American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.
Abstract: This paper examines whether electronic procurement (e-procurement), which increases access to information and reduces personal interactions with potentially corrupt officials, improves procurement outcomes. We develop unique datasets from India and Indonesia and use variation in adoption of e-procurement within both countries. We find no evidence of reduced prices but do find that e-procurement leads to quality improvements. In India, where we observe quality directly, e-procurement improves road quality, and in Indonesia, e-procurement reduces delays. Regions with e-procurement are more likely to have winners come from outside the region. On net, the results suggest that e-procurement facilitates entry from higher quality contractors.
Research Papers: “Enfranchising Your Own? Experimental Evidence on Polling Officer Identity and Electoral Outcomes in India” [Job Market Paper]
Abstract: The spread of democracy in the developing world has often been accompanied by concerns regarding the integrity of election management. In this paper I identify how ethnic diversity, or lack thereof, among polling station officials influences voting outcomes. I exploit a natural experiment which occurred during the 2014 parliamentary elections in India, where a government policy mandated the random assignment of state employees to the teams that managed polling stations. The presence of officers of minority religious or caste identity within teams led to an average shift in vote share margin of 2.3 percentage points toward the political parties traditionally associated with these groups. I also find significant spillover effects across polling stations. The combined magnitude of the direct and indirect effects is large enough to be relevant to election outcomes. Using survey experiments conducted with more than 5,200 registered voters and election officials, I provide evidence of own-group favoritism in polling personnel and identify the process of voter identity verification as an important channel through which voting outcomes are impacted. Working Papers: “Transparency and Accountability: Open Meetings Statutes in U.S. State Legislatures”
Abstract: This paper studies the effects of increased transparency of representative actions in the legislative setting. I exploit variation in the timing of enactment across U.S. states of open meetings laws which guarantee public access to state legislative sessions to consider impacts on: bill introduction and enactment, state government expenditure, and candidate and voter behavior in state elections. As recent work by Campante and Do (2014) shows that isolated capital cities in U.S. states are strongly associated with reduced accountability and higher corruption, I also examine heterogeneity in impacts by the spatial distribution of population relative to the state capital. In states with more isolated legislatures, the adoption of open meetings significantly reduces the percentage of bills passed per session, while the level and share of direct state government expenditure on public goods increase. In less isolated legislatures, open meetings reduce the likelihood that challengers stand in elections and increase incumbent vote shares.
Research in Progress: “Texting Bad Politicians Out of Office” (with Siddharth George and Sarika Gupta) “Land Reform, Deforestation, and Political Engagement: Evidence from the Forest Rights Act in India”
OYEBOLA OKUNOGBE http://scholar.harvard.edu/oye [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information 124 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 100 Cambridge, MA 02138 617-417-4622
Personal Information: Female, Nigerian
Undergraduate and Masters Education: Bachelor of Arts, Economics, Dartmouth College, summa cum laude, 2006
MPA in International Development, Harvard Kennedy School, 2010
Doctoral Studies: Harvard University, 2010 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Public Policy Thesis Title: “Essays in Development Economics” Expected Completion Date: May 2016
References: Professor Asim Khwaja Professor Alberto Alesina Harvard Kennedy School Harvard University, Economics Department 617-384-7790, [email protected] 617-495-8388, [email protected]
Professor Nathan Nunn Professor Dina Pomeranz Harvard University, Economics Department Harvard Business School 617-496-4958, [email protected] 617-495-1422, [email protected]
Fields: Development Economics, Political Economy, Public Economics
Teaching Experience: Summer, 2013 Instructor, Principles of Economics, Harvard Kennedy School Mid-Career Masters and 2014 in Public Administration Fall, 2012 Teaching Fellow for Professor Albert Nichols, Markets and Market Failures with Cases
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2013- 2015 International Growth Center/ Liberia Revenue Authority, Researcher 2013- 2015 World Bank Group, Research Consultant 2009- 2014 Harvard University, Research Assistant to Professors Frankel, Kremer and Sheely and Pomeranz Oyebola Okunogbe
2009 (summer) Government of Liberia Ministry of Finance, Revenue Department Focal Point 2007- 2008 NOI Polls (Abuja, Nigeria), Research Analyst 2006- 2007 LEAP Africa (Lagos, Nigeria), Research Associate
Professional Activities International Growth Center, Growth Week 2014, Presenter National Tax Association Conference 2012, Discussant Review of Economics and Statistics, Referee World Bank ieGovern Impact Evaluation proposals, External Reviewer
Fellowships and Research Grants: 2015 Lab for Economic Applications and Policy (with Gabriel Tourek) for “Improving Tax Compliance in Rwanda” 2013- 2015 International Growth Center, Principal Investigator for “State Capacity and Tax Compliance in Liberia” 2013- 2015 Weiss Family Fund, Exploratory Grant and Full Grant for “Impact of Intergroup Migration on National Integration” 2011- 2013 Mustard Seed Foundation, Harvey Fellowship 2012 Harvard Committee on African Studies summer research grant
Job Market Paper:
“Impact of Intergroup Migration on National Integration in a Multi-Ethnic State: Evidence from Nigeria”
Given the severe costs of ethnic divisions, promoting national integration is a pressing concern in diverse countries. In this paper, I examine the impact of exposure to a different ethnic region on individuals’ future migration choices, national identity, and inter-ethnic relationships. For exogenous variation in migration exposure, I exploit randomized postings of Nigerian university graduates to different states of the country for a mandatory year of non-military service. Using a survey I administer to a cohort of university alumni, I find persistent effects seven years later. Participants who migrated outside their ethnic region during the program are four times as likely as those who remained to be living in other regions of the country. This effect is associated with both being more knowledgeable about other states and being more open to live across ethnic boundaries. Next, I document that both national and ethnic pride increase for exposed participants. At the same time, consistent with social identity theory, being immersed in a different group during the program increases participants’ sense of ethnic pride and has, if anything, a negative effect on interethnic attitudes and friendships. Together, the results suggest that intergroup exposure can increase familiarity and confidence for engaging with unfamiliar regions without necessarily improving social affinity among groups.
Work in Progress
“State Capacity and Tax Compliance in Liberia”
In a context with low legal enforcement, what factors can promote entry into the tax base? While the Allingham-Sandmo model and the growing literature on third party reporting emphasize the importance of detection capacity, less attention has been paid to the ability of the state to enforce the tax laws and collect payment after detection. This project uses a randomized field experiment with property owners in Liberia to understand how individuals respond to increases in state capacity along these two dimensions.
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Oyebola Okunogbe
“Technology and Corruption: Evidence from a Tax Administration Field Experiment in Tajikistan” (with Victor Pouliquen)
We study the impact of technological innovations on corruption by examining the adoption and subsequent impact of electronic tax filing in Tajikistan. Electronic filing allows taxpayers to submit their tax declarations online thereby avoiding interactions with tax officials during monthly tax submissions. We examine whether firms’ risk of tax evasion predicts their likelihood of adopting e-filing, since higher risk firms may differentially benefit from frequent contact with inspectors and manual records. Next, we study the impact of e-filing adoption on firms’ perceptions of corruption in tax administration as well as their economic and tax behavior.
“Public Shaming and Tax Compliance in Rwanda” (with Gabriel Tourek)
This project examines the impact of public shaming – publishing names of tax debtors in the newspaper – in Rwanda as a strategy for enforcing arrears payments by delinquent taxpayers. We examine the impact of public exposure of non-payment on firms, including their future tax declaration, tax payment, and business activities.
Policy Articles
“Optimizing Real Estate Tax in Liberia: Implications for Revenue Performance and Growth.” International Growth Center (IGC) Rapid Response Note Prepared for the Ministry of Finance in Liberia. September 2013.
“New Hampshire’s Quest for a Constitutionally Adequate Education.” Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. New England Public Policy Centre, Discussion Paper 06-2. October 2006.
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SAMUEL STOLPER http://scholar.harvard.edu/sstolper [email protected]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Placement Director: David Cutler [email protected] 617-496-5216 Placement Director: Oliver Hart [email protected] 617-496-3461 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927
Office Contact Information Home Contact Information Room 113, Suite 100, 124 Mt. Auburn St. 42 Windermere Road Cambridge, MA 02138 Newton, MA 02466 617-548-9107 617-548-9107
Undergraduate Studies: B.S. with honors, Biomedical Engineering, Brown University, 2006
Graduate Studies: Harvard University, 2010 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Public Policy Thesis Title: “Oil and Water: Essays in Environmental and Energy Economics” Expected Completion Date: June 2016
References: Professor Joseph Aldy (chair and teaching ref.) Professor Robert Stavins Harvard Kennedy School of Government Harvard Kennedy School of Government [email protected] [email protected] 617-496-7213 617-495-1820
Professor James Stock Professor Nathaniel Hendren Harvard University Dept. of Economics Harvard University Dept. of Economics [email protected] [email protected] 617-496-0502 617-496-3588
Research and Teaching Fields: Primary fields: Environmental Economics, Public Finance Secondary fields: Industrial Organization, Development Economics Additional teaching fields: Microeconomics, Econometrics
Teaching Experience: Spring 2014 Economics of Climate Change, Harvard University Dept. of Economics (undergraduate), course creator and sole lecturer Spring 2014 Economic Analysis of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government (master), teaching fellow for Professor Joseph Aldy
October 12th, 2015
Research Experience and Other Employment: 2014 Harvard Kennedy School, Research Assistant to Professor Robert Stavins 2014 Harvard Kennedy School, Research Assistant to Professors Joseph Aldy, Daniel Shoag, and Christopher Robichaud 2012-2013 Harvard Kennedy School, Doctoral Fellow in the Sustainability Science Program, Public-Private Partnerships to Promote Sustainable Development subgroup 2011 Resources For the Future, Research Intern to Dr. Allen Blackman 2008-2010 Center for International Development at Harvard Kennedy School, Research Assistant to Professors Rema Hanna and Michael Greenstone
Professional Activities: 2014-Present Blog writer, Sense and Sustainability (http://www.senseandsustainability.net) 2013-2015 Co-administrator, Harvard Environmental Economics Lunch 2015 Invited presentation at the Interdisciplinary Workshop in Sustainable Development, Columbia University, New York, NY (declined) 2015 Invited presentation at the National Commission on Markets and Competition, Madrid, Spain 2014 Invited presentation at the Development Policy Conference, International Growth Centre, Delhi, India
Honors and Fellowships: 2014-2015 Joseph Crump Fellowship, Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) 2014 Certificate of Excellence in Teaching, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard University 2013-2014 International Growth Centre Research Grant, International Growth Centre 2012-2013 Giorgio Ruffolo Doctoral Fellowship in Sustainability Science, HKS 2012-2013 Vicki Norberg-Bohm Fellowship, HKS
Research Papers: “Who Bears the Burden of Energy Taxes? The Critical Role of Pass-Through” (Job Market Paper)
Abstract: Existing estimates of energy tax incidence assume that the pass-through of taxes to final consumer prices is uniform across the affected population. I show that, in fact, variation in local market conditions drives significant heterogeneity in pass-through, and ignoring this can lead to mistaken conclusions about the distributional impacts of energy taxes. I use data from the Spanish retail automotive fuel market to estimate station-specific pass-through, focusing on the effects of competition and wealth. A novel informational mandate provides access to a national, station-daily panel of retail diesel prices and characteristics and allows me to investigate market composition at a fine level. Event study and difference-in-difference regression reveal that, while retail prices rise nearly one-for-one (100%) with taxes on average, station-specific pass-through rates range from 50 to 130%. Greater market power -- measured by brand concentration and spatial isolation -- is strongly associated with higher pass-through, even after conditioning on detailed demand-side characteristics. Furthermore, pass- through rises linearly with area-average house prices. While a conventional estimate of the Spanish diesel tax burden suggests roughly equivalent incidence across the wealth distribution, overlaying the effect of heterogeneous pass-through reveals the tax to be unambiguously progressive.
October 12th, 2015
“Environmental Policy, River Pollution, and Infant Health: Evidence from Mehta vs. Union of India” (with Quy-Toan Do and Shareen Joshi)
Abstract: India's rivers are heavily polluted. We study the impact of a landmark piece of judicially mandated pollution legislation in Kanpur, India, whose tanning industry delivers large amounts of toxic waste into the Ganga River. In September 1987, the Supreme Court of India ruled on one of India's first significant cases of public interest litigation and ordered the tanneries of Kanpur to either clean their waste or shut down. We explore the mortality burden of this ruling in Kanpur district as well as districts downstream, and find a significant drop in both river pollution (as measured by Biochemical Oxygen Demand) and health risk (as measured by infant mortality). We also explore the channels that drive the policy's health impact by using instrumental variables regression, comparing results from two different instruments -- upstream river pollution, and the Kanpur policy itself. A structural test on the estimates from these regressions confirms that Kanpur policy's mortality impacts came predominantly through the pollution channel. In this particular instance, policy was indeed effective in lowering pollution and improving health in Kanpur, India.
“Flexibility and Cost-Effectiveness: Evidence from Renewable Portfolio Standards”
October 12th, 2015