Field Experiments to Measure the Impact of Solar Lights at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Funded Research Proposal

Providing access to cleaner and cheaper lighting solutions is necessary to lift people out of poverty. The magnitude of the economic, health, and educational impacts created by these lighting solutions as we move up the energy ladder, however, is not clear.Read More

Industry-University Collaboration and Commercializing Chinese Corporate Innovation

Funded Research Proposal

We examine how industry-university collaboration (IUC) enhances Chinese firms’ commercialization of their technologies using a comprehensive dataset of medium- sized and large industrial firms and research universities in China.Read More

Regulating Untaxable Externalities: Are Vehicle Air Pollution Standards Effective and Efficient?

Funded Research Proposal

What is a feasible and efficient policy to regulate air pollution from vehicles? A Pigouvian tax is technologically infeasible. Most countries instead rely on exhaust standards that limit air pollution emissions per mile for new vehicles. We assess the effectiveness and efficiency of these standards, which are the centerpiece of US Clean Air Act regulation of transportation, and counterfactual policies.Read More

Implications of Revenue Models and Technology for Content Moderation Strategies

Working Papers

This paper develops a theoretical model to study the economic incentives for a social media platform to moderate user-generated content. We show that a self-interested platform can use content moderation as an effective marketing tool to expand its installed user base, to increase the utility of its users, and to achieve its positioning as a moderate or extreme content platform.Read More

Emission Targets as a Way for Tacit Coordination

Funded Research Proposal

The goal of the project is to identify cheap talk and faithful signaling in environmental reports issued by the U.S. largest firms and understand the determinants and consequences of cheap talk about firms’ climate responsibility.Read More

The Peril of Pay Variability: Determinants of Worker Aversion to Variable Compensation in Lower-Wage Jobs

Working Papers

Uber. Upwork. TaskRabbit. The world of work is transforming and my research agenda attempts to identify and explain 1) how work is changing and 2) how these changes affect workers, especially those who are marginalized or vulnerable.Read More

Towards a Causal Theory and Test of Network Effects: Structural Holes, Alliance-Network Externalities, and Organizational Innovation

Working Papers

We investigate whether the effect of network position on innovation is causal or spurious. Although empirical evidence demonstrates that certain structural positions in alliance networks (e.g. structural holes) affect firm innovation, it is hard to disentangle the factors allowing a firm to put itself in a certain position from the innovation outcomes that stem from being in that position.Read More

When Should the Off-grid Sun Shine at Night? Optimum Renewable Generation and Energy Storage Investments

Working Papers

Globally, 1.5 billion people live off the grid, their only access to electricity often limited to operationally-expensive fossil fuel generators. Solar power has risen as a sustainable and less expensive option, but its generation is variable during the day and non-existent at night.Read More

Doing Good for (Maybe) Nothing: How Reward Uncertainty Shapes Observer Responses to Prosocial Behavior

Published Research

Consumers are often skeptical of social innovation (e.g., CSR), thinking that firms undertake such innovations to increase profit rather than to “do the right thing.” How can firms convey the social and monetary benefits of investing in social innovations to consumers and stakeholders to best improve their brand image?Read More

Credit Supply & Entrepreneurship in Low-Income Regions

Working Papers

We show that bank credit affects entrepreneurship, but only in low-income regions. We use a novel methodology to identify credit supply shock from regional demand shock using comprehensive data on small business loans between pairs of banks and counties in the US.Read More

Social Media, Entrepreneurship and Institutional Environment

Funded Research Proposal

Entrepreneurial strategies to cope with dynamic environments are becoming increasingly important globally with the heightened technological and institutional disruptions in the recent and coming years. These dynamic environments are usually characterized by high velocity, complexity, ambiguity and unpredictability, creating additional challenges for entrepreneurs to find and realize opportunitiesRead More

Deep Causal Inequalities: Demand Estimation in Differentiated Products Markets

Funded Research Proposal

Supervised machine learning algorithms fail to perform well in the presence of endogeneity in the explanatory variables. In this paper, we borrow from literature on partial identification to propose deep causal inequalities that overcomes this issue.Read More

Be an Ally: The Role of Identity in Inspiring Collective Action

Funded Research Proposal

People are frequently asked to engage in collective action—voting, protesting, signing petitions, donating—to uplift members of traditionally marginalized groups and encourage social change. Prior research suggests that minority group members who advocate for collective action are penalized for doing so, while majority group members are not. In this work, I shift focus from perceptions of people who take collective action to how effectively people are able to persuade others to engage in collective action.Read More