Funded Research Proposals

Prior authorization (PA) is widely used to manage utilization of high-cost health services, yet it imposes administrative burdens and can delay care. As generative AI is increasingly deployed to automate both the submission of prior authorization requests by providers and authorization decisions by insurers, raising questions about the effectiveness of gatekeeping as a utilization management ...Read More

I am interested in understanding how high-growth, knowledge-based startups acquire human capital against the backdrop of the challenges and dilemmas that come with rapid organizational expansion. Human capital is a critical resource for these firms, allowing for increased production, knowledge, and resources. However, the dynamic nature of high-growth periods also poses significant challenges. Against the ...Read More

Many firms have identified opportunities to innovate, but can’t connect them with potential solutions within other parts of their organization. The purpose of this project is to test the hypothesized reasons why these internal opportunity markets are inefficient and evaluate possible ways to improve them. Read More

In this project, we aim to present theory and empirical evidence connecting firms’ movements up the AI “stack”: the series of technology innovations leading to AI-enabled prediction and comprised of prior investments in networks, databases, big data, etc. Read More

Regulators often seek to spur the adoption of green technologies (such as electric vehicles) using one of two financial subsidies: lowering the upfront cost of buying the technology (such as an electric vehicle subsidy) and lowering the marginal cost of using the technology (such as an electricity tariff subsidy). This project evaluates how the economic ...Read More

Tiantian Yang, Management, The Wharton School Abstract: Female-led ventures in female-focused industries (e.g., FemTech) face a unique tension between authenticity and perceived legitimacy in the eyes of potential employees. While identity-based lived experience can signal market insight and mission alignment, it may also conflict with gendered norms about who leads high-growth ventures. This project explores how ...Read More

Private Equity (PE) investment in healthcare is growing rapidly. Because medical-technology firms shape healthcare innovation, spending, and quality—and rely heavily on public insurance reimbursements—PE ownership in this sector could have substantial long-term implications for innovation, costs, and patient outcomes. Yet most existing research on PE in health care focuses on care delivery, despite 63% of ...Read More

We propose and test a novel decision-making bias called “outlier neglect.” In general, when evaluating people, places, and opportunities with many features, people focus on the average of those features. For example, when hiring a team, people want the average performance of the team to be high, so they try to hire individuals who perform ...Read More

Consumers who want access to renewable energy have two main options: install renewable energy generation equipment “behind” the electrical meter (e.g., solar panels on the roof) or buy energy from a utility company, which would then source energy from generation companies. The first approach has obvious diseconomies of scale. It is only available to ...Read More

Grid-scale electricity storage technologies play a vital role in balancing electricity supply and demand, particularly as renewable energy sources like wind and solar introduce greater variability into power systems. Lithium-ion batteries, accounting for 90% of U.S. electricity storage capacity, are widely regarded as essential to the clean energy transition. By storing excess electricity during periods ...Read More