Leadership & Organizational Behavior

Technology is often embodied in expensive and indivisible capital goods. As a result, the small scale of firms in developing countries could hinder investment and productivity. This paper argues that market interactions between small firms can alleviate this concern. We design and implement a survey of manufacturing firms in Uganda, which uncovers an active rental market for large machines among small firms. We then build an equilibrium model of firm behavior and estimate it with our data.

We extract aggregate demand and supply shocks for the US economy from real-time survey data on inflation and real GDP growth using a novel identification scheme. Our approach exploits non-Gaussian features of macroeconomic forecast revisions and imposes minimal theoretical assumptions. After verifying that our results for US post-war business cycle fluctuations are largely in line with the prevailing consensus, we proceed to study output and price fluctuations during COVID-19. We attribute two thirds of the decline in 2020:Q1 GDP to a negative shock to aggregate demand.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the National Quality Forum have endorsed the 30-day mortality rate as an important indicator of hospital quality. Concerns have been raised, however, as to whether post-discharge mortality rates are reasonable measures of hospital quality as they consider the frequency of an event that occurs after a patient is discharged and no longer under the watch and care of hospital staff. Estimating the causal effect of length-of-stay (LOS) on post-discharge mortality from retrospective data introduces a number of econometric challenges.

Why does power lead to action? Theories of power suggest it leads to action because it presses the psychological gas pedal. A review of two decades of research finds, instead, that power releases the psychological brakes on action. Power releases the psychological brakes on action by making failure seem less probable and feel less painful, thereby decreasing the downside risks of action. Power releases the psychological brakes on action by shrouding the feelings and thoughts of others, thereby diminishing the perceived social costs of action.

An information system is a primitive structure that defines which agents can initially get information and how such information is then distributed to others. From political and organizational economics to privacy, information systems arise in various contexts and, unlike information itself, can be easily observed empirically. We introduce a methodology to characterize how information systems affect strategic behavior. This involves proving a revelation principle result for a novel class of constrained information design problems.

We study how monetary policy and risk shocks affect major asset prices (interest rates, stocks, long-term bonds) in three large economies: the US, the euro area, and Japan. Using a high-frequency framework, we fail to find evidence in favor of monetary policy affecting foreign asset prices through a risk channel. There is however a strong global common component in risk shocks affecting asset prices in all three economies.

How do ethical arguments affect AI adoption in business? We randomly expose business decision-makers to arguments used in AI fairness activism. Arguments emphasizing the inescapability of algorithmic bias lead managers to abandon AI for manual review by humans and report greater expectations about lawsuits and negative PR. These effects persist even when AI lowers gender and racial disparities, and when engineering investments to address AI fairness are feasible. Emphasis on status quo comparisons yields opposite effects.

Salary history bans forbid employers from asking job candidates to disclose their salaries. However, applicants can still volunteer this information. Our theoretical model predicts the effect of these laws varies by how workers comply. Our survey of Americans in the labor force finds candidates fall into three compliance types: 25% always disclose their salary whether asked or not, 17% never disclose, and 58% comply with the ban (disclosing only when asked). Importantly, compliance type varies by demographics (e.g.

We derive a measure of firm-level regulatory exposure from the text of corporate earnings calls. We use this measure to study the effect of regulation on companies’ growth, leverage, profitability, and equity returns. Higher regulatory exposure results in slower sales and asset growth, lower leverage, reduced profitability, but higher post-call equity returns. These effects are mitigated for larger firms. Our findings suggest that both compliance risk and physical operational cost are consequences of increased regulation, but the magnitude of the effects of compliance risk are larger.