UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

ROSS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

What makes a good manager good? We let the data tell us -- and find that hard-to-observe things like attention and control have large effects on productivity, and are drastically undervalued in manager pay.

pdf | august 2021 | Review of Economic Studies (forthcoming)

When workers face environmental shocks, managers reallocate tasks within teams, shifting workers away from jobs in which their performance is most affected.

pdf | may 2021 | Journal of Political Economy (forthcoming)

Our results help explain why conflict keeps the most resource-rich countries no better off than the most resource-poor.

pdf | Journal of Development Economics, 2021 (Issue 149)

Income shocks in early life have large, lasting effects on mental health.

pdf | blog | Journal of Political Economy, 2019, 127(4)

LED lighting flattens the temperature-productivity gradient on hot days in Indian garment factories.

pdf | Review of Economics and Statistics, 2020, 102(4)

Iodized salt increased women's income and labor force participation in the 20th century US.

pdf | Review of Economics and Statistics, 2020, 102(2)

Dust from the annual harmattan winds increases infant and child mortality in West Africa, but human adaptation has tapered these impacts over a 20 year period.

We ask whether information can be delivered without negative consequences to mental health. We randomly assigned individuals to receive Covid-19 information through text messages, a pre-recorded audio message, or phone calls. Phone calls were effective at engaging individuals. They improved Covid-19 knowledge and reduced depression and anxiety; the amount of information delivered does not account for this effect.

pdf | june 2021 | Journal of Development Economics (forthcoming)

Does childhood exposure to war perpetuate cycles of conflict in Africa?

pdf | blog | Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2023, 71(2)

Households use small business activity to weather income shocks.

pdf | published | World Bank Economic Review, 2019 (December)

Household enterprise as a means of mitigating the effects of health shocks.

Do parents invest more in smarter children?

Why is formal sector care better than self-treatment for sick children?

pdf | American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2015, 7(3)

Misdiagnosis slows down the adoption of effective new therapies.

pdf | appendix | Review of Economic Studies, 2014, 81(4)

Pro-labor laws constrain firms' responses to shocks.

Does accessing formal sector care affect sick children's time use?

Do HIV-related deaths affect surviving elderly household members?

pdf | published | Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2012, 60(2), lead article

Soft skills training on-the-job boosts worker productivity and generates large returns for the firm.

pdf | may 2021 | 3rd round R&R, Journal of Political Economy

A randomized evaluation of Hirschman's (1970) seminal theory. Workers quit when wage increases do not meet their expectations, but enabling voice mitigates this exit.

pdf | may 2021 | Conditionally accepted, Economic Journal

Cash transfers mitigate a large fraction of the negative impact of early life shocks on educational attainment and employment outcomes.

pdf | september 2021 | R&R, Economic Journal

Worker satisfaction depends critically on how expectations are set by firms. Migrant workers experienced large losses in subjective wellbeing when randomized improvements in hostel living conditions were more modest than expected.

pdf | july 2020 | R&R, Journal of Public Economics

Increasing access to nontechnical amenities substantially drives up the demand for cataract surgery in Mexico.

pdf | july 2020 | Reject and Resubmit, Review of Economics and Statistics

Enabling worker voice through a two-way, anonymous, SMS-based technology decreases absenteeism and turnover, despite infrequent usage. Our findings suggest a substantial option value of voice, which can promote positive workplace behaviors even when workers do not directly avail themselves of the technology.

pdf | september 2021

Do talented managers match with productive workers, or with those who are struggling to perform? We find negative assortative matching of managers and workers. Despite supermodularity of production, "misallocating" managerial skill in this way may be optimal for firms who value buyer relationships.

pdf | september 2021

Can policy protect against the often devastating human impacts of environmental shocks? We study this question by leveraging data from a situation in which a tornado tore through an area involved in a double-blind cluster-randomized controlled trial of at-birth vitamin A supplementation in Bangladesh.

pdf | september 2021

Temperature shocks during the in utero period significantly contribute to the adult mental health disease burden in Africa.

pdf | blog | august 2021

Individuals who enjoyed preferential quota size for civil exams invested more in schooling and achieved better labor market outcomes.

We study the behavior of managers who share workers across teams to weather absenteeism shocks. Relationships have some smoothing value, but many potentially beneficial transfers are left unrealized. We simulate the gains to increased relationship formation and find that the firm could reduce worker misallocation and increase productivity substantially by spurring relationship formation.

pdf | march 2021