Business Economics and Public Policy Papers
Public policy considerations occupy an increasing portion of managers’ time, especially in the global arena. The leaders of tomorrow must be able to perform policy analysis as well as integrate policy issues into their general management thinking. Bringing a wealth of theoretical tools and practical experience to bear on the relationship among business, government, and society, Wharton’s Business Economics and Public Policy Department has been an innovative force in research, teaching, and public service. Areas of faculty expertise include deregulation and privatization, technology, public and urban finance, and international industrial policy.
Members of the Business Economics and Public Policy faculty have held presidential appointments on federal regulatory commissions, been managers in large corporations, held research appointments and fellowships in government and not-for-profit think tanks, serve on the boards of many corporations, and provide consulting services to international and U.S. government agencies.
Submissions from 2017
Cognitive Constraints on Valuing Annuities, Jeffrey R. Brown, Arie Kapteyn, Erzo F. P. Luttmer, and Olivia Mitchell
A Theory of Collusion with Partial Mutual Understanding, Joseph E. Harrington Jr
What Can the Duration of Discovered Cartels Tell Us About the Duration of All Cartels?, Joseph E. Harrington Jr and Yanhao Wei
Optimal Financial Knowledge and Wealth Inequality, Annamaria Lusardi, Pierre-Carl Michaud, and Olivia Mitchell
Submissions from 2016
Estimating Top Income and Wealth Shares: Sensitivity to Data and Methods, Jesse Bricker, Alice Henriques, Jacob Krimmel, and John Sabelhaus
Heterogeneous Firms can Always Collude on a Minimum Price, Joseph E. Harrington Jr
The Relative Efficacy of Price Announcements and Express Communication for Collusion: Experimental Findings, Joseph E. Harrington Jr, Roberto Hernan Gonzalez, and Praveen Kujal
Time is Money: Rational Life Cycle Inertia and the Delegation of Investment Management, Hugh Hoikwang Kim, Raimond Maurer, and Olivia S. Mitchell
Positive and Normative Judgments Implicit in U.S. Tax Policy, and the Costs of Unequal Growth and Recessions, Benjamin B. Lockwood and Matthew Weinzierl
Will They Take The Money And Work? People's Willingness to Delay Claiming Social Security Benefits for a Lump Sum, Raimond Maurer, Olivia S. Mitchell, Ralph Rogalla, and Tatjana Schimetschek
Accounting and Actuarial Smoothing of Retirement Payouts in Participating Life Annuities, Raimond Maurer, Olivia S. Mitchell, Ralph Rogalla, and Ivonne Siegelin
The Opaqueness of Structured Bonds: Evidence from the U.S. Insurance Industry, Sojung Carol Park, Jean Lemaire, and Xiaoying Xie
Punishment and Cooperation in Stochastic Social Dilemmas, Erte Xiao and Howard Kunreuther
Submissions from 2015
Competition Policy and Cartel Size, Iwan Bos and Joseph E. Harrington Jr
Price Controls and Market Structure: Evidence From Gasoline Retail Markets, Juan Esteban Carranza, Robert Clark, and Jean-François Houde
Estimating Ambiguity Preferences and Perceptions in Multiple Prior Models: Evidence from the Field, Stephen G. Dimmock
Do Newspapers Serve the State? Incumbent Party Influence on the US Press, 1869-1928, Matthew Gentzkow, Nathan Petek, Jesse M. Shapiro, and Michael Sinkinson
Optimal Life Cycle Portfolio Choice with Variable Annuities Offering Liquidity and Investment Downside Protection, Vanya Horneff
The External Validity of Laboratory Experiments: Qualitative Rather Than Quantitative Effects, Judd B. Kessler and Lise Vesterlund
The Use of Annual Mileage as a Rating Variable, Jean Lemaire, Sojung Carol Park, and Kili Wang
De Gustibus non est Taxandum: Heterogeneity in Preferences and Optimal Redistribution, Benjamin B. Lockwood and Matthew Weinzierl
Comparing the Effectiveness of Individualistic, Altruistic, and Competitive Incentives in Motivating Completion of Mental Exercises, Heather Schofield, George Loewenstein, Jessica Kopsic, and Kevin G. Volpp
Statistical Discrimination, Productivity, and the Height of Immigrants, Shing-Yi Wang
Submissions from 2014
Price Dispersion in Mortgage Markets, Jason Allen, Robert Clark, and Jean-François Houde
Imperfect Competition in Two-sided Matching Markets, Eduardo M. Azevedo
'Feel the Warmth' Glow: A Field Experiment on Manipulating the Act of Giving, Amanda Chuan and Anya SavikhinSamek
The Effect of Explicit Communication on Pricing: Evidence From the Collapse of a Gasoline Cartel, Robert Clark and Jean-François Houde
Scenario Analysis in the Measurement of Operational Risk Capital: A Change of Measure Approach, Kabir Kalyan Dutta and David F. Babbel
Taxation and the Earnings of Husbands and Wives: Evidence From Sweden, Alexander M. Gelber
Imperfect Memory and Choice Under Risk, Daniel A. Gottlieb
What Happens the Morning After? The Costs and Benefits of Expanding Access to Emergency Contraception, Tal Gross, Jeanne Lafortune, and Corinne Low
Penalties and the Deterrence of Unlawful Collusion, Joseph E. Harrington Jr
The Discontent Cartel Member and Cartel Collapse: The Case of the German Cement Cartel, Joseph E. Harrington Jr, Kai Hüschelrath, Ulrich Laitenberger, and Florian Smuda
Cartel Sales Dynamics when Monitoring for Compliance is More Frequent than Punishment for Non-Compliance,, Joseph E. Harrington Jr and Juan-Pablo Montero
Learning From (Failed) Replications: Cognitive Load Manipulations and Charitable Giving, Judd B. Kessler and Stephan Meier
Getting More Organs for Transplantation, Judd B. Kessler and Alvin E. Roth
Loopholes Undermine Donation: An Experiment Motivated by an Organ Donation Priority Loophole in Israel, Judd B. Kessler and Alvin E. Roth
Behavioral Economics and Health, Judd B. Kessler and C. Yiwei Zhang
Addressing Affordability in the National Flood Insurance Program, Carolyn Kousky and Howard Kunreuther
Globalization and its Effect on World Poverty and Inequality, Hardy Loh Rahim, Zanariah Zainal Abidin, Selina Dang Siew Ping, Mohamed Khaidir Alias, and Azim Izzuddin Muhamad
Property Rights and Intra-household Bargaining, Shing-Yi Wang
Submissions from 2013
Perverse Reverse Price Competition: Average Wholesale Prices and Medicaid Pharmaceutical Spending, Abby Alpert, Mark Duggan, and Judith K. Hellerstein
Legislative Committees as Information Intermediaries: A Unified Theory of Committee Selection and Amendment Rules, Attila Ambrus, Eduardo Azevedo, Yuichiro Kamada, and Yuki Takagi
Individual Learning and Social Learning: Endogenous Division of Cognitive Labor in a Population of Co-evolving Problem-Solvers, Myong-Hun Chang and Joseph E. Harrington Jr
R&D and productivity: Estimating endogenous productivity, Ulrich Doraszelski and Jordi Jaumandreu
Children’s Schooling and Parents’ Behavior: Evidence From the Head Start Impact Study, Alexander M. Gelber and Adam Isen
Why do groups cooperate more than individuals to reduce risks?, Min Gong, Jonathan Baron, and Howard Kunreuther
Political Ideology Affects Energy-Efficiency Attitudes and Choices, Dena Gromet, Howard Kunreuther, and Richard P. Larrick
Corporate Leniency Programs When Firms Have Private Information: The Push of Prosecution and the Pull of Pre-emption, Joseph E. Harrington Jr
Understanding the Democratic Transition in South Africa, Robert P. Inman and Daniel L. Rubinfeld
The Current State of U.S. Household Balance Sheets, Jacob Krimmel, Kevin B. Moore, John Sabelhaus, and Paul Smith
Making America More Resilient toward Natural Disasters: A Call for Action, Howard Kunreuther, Erwann Michel-Kerjan, and Mark Pauly PhD
Antipsychotic Adherence Patterns and Health Care Utilization and Costs Among Patients Discharged After a Schizophrenia-Related Hospitalization, Daniel Markowitz, Sudeep Karve, Jessica Panish, Sean D. Candrilli, and Larry Alphs
Resource Extraction Contracts Under Threat of Expropriation: Theory and Evidence, Johannes Stroebel and Arthur van Benthem
Scale and Transfers in International Emissions Offset Programs, Arthur van Benthem and Suzi Kerr
Submissions from 2012
A Multi-level Investigation of Information Technology Outsourcing, Benoit Aubert, Jean-François Houde, Michel Patry, and Suzanne Rivard
Procurement in Supply Chains When the End-Product Exhibits the 'Weakest Link' Property, Stanley Baiman, Serguei Netessine, and Howard Kunreuther
Rank Incentives: Evidence from a Randomized Workplace Experiment, Iwan Barankay
A Dynamic Quality Ladder Model With Entry and Exit: Exploring the Equilibrium Correspondence Using the Homotopy Method, Ron N. Borkovsky, Ulrich Doraszelski, and Yaroslav Kryukov
Information Effect of Entry Into Credit Ratings Market: The Case of Insurers' Ratings, Neil A. Doherty, Anastasia V. Kartasheva, and Richard D. Phillips
Restricted Feedback in Long Term Relationships, Ulrich Doraszelski and Juan F. Escobar
Should Educational Policies be Regressive, Daniel A. Gottlieb and Humberto Moreira
Unintended Consequences From Nested State and Federal Regulations: The Case of the Pavley Greenhouse-gas-per-mile Limits, Lawrence H. Goulder, Mark R. Jacobsen, and Arthur van Benthem
Exploring the Boundaries of Unlawful Collusion: Price Coordination when Firms Lack Full Mutual Understanding, Joseph E. Harrington Jr
Signaling and Tacit Collusion in an Infinitely Repeated Prisoners’ Dilemma, Joseph E. Harrington Jr and Wei Zhao
Fees, Framing, and Financial Literacy in the Choice of Pension Manager, Justin Hastings, Olivia S. Mitchell, and Eric Chyn
Design of Investment Promotion Policies, Anastasia V. Kartasheva
Norms and Contracting, Judd B. Kessler and Stephen Leider
Policy Tenure Under the U.S. National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), Erwann Michel-Kerjan, Sabine Lemoyne de Forges, and Howard Kunreuther
Do Property Rights Lead to Sustainable Catch Increases?, Josh Nowlis and Arthur van Benthem
Protecting Against Low-Probability Disasters: The Role of Worry, Christian Schade, Howard Kunreuther, and Philipp Koellinger
Credit Constraints, Job Mobility, and Entrepreneurship: Evidence From a Property Reform in China, Shing-Yi Wang
Submissions from 2011
Optimal Portfolio Choice over the Life Cycle with Flexible Work, Endogenous Retirement, and Lifetime Payouts, Jingjing Chai, Wolfram J. Horneff, Raimond Maurer, and Olivia S. Mitchell
Optimal Portfolio Choice over the Life-Cycle with Flexible Work, Endogenous Retirement, and Lifetime Payouts, Jingjing Chai, Wolfram J. Horneff, Raimond Maurer, and Olivia S. Mitchell
Longevity Risk Management in Singapore’s National Pension System, Joelle H Y Fong, Benedict S K Koh, and Olivia Mitchell
The Effect of Newspaper Entry and Exit on Electoral Politics, Matthew Gentzkow, Jesse M. Shapiro, and Michael Sinkinson
Posted Pricing as a Plus Factor, Joseph E. Harrington Jr
Private Monitoring and Communication in Cartels: Explaining Recent Collusive Practices, Joseph E. Harrington Jr and Andrzej Skrzypacz
Stuck in the Adoption Funnel: The Effect of Interruptions in the Adoption Process on Usage, Anja Lambrecht, Katja Seim, and Catherine Tucker
Financial Literacy and Retirement Planning in the United States, Annamaria Lusardi and Olivia S. Mitchell
Financial Literacy Around the World: an Overview, Annamaria Lusardi and Olivia S. Mitchell
Turning Wealth into Lifetime Income: The Challenge Ahead, Olivia Mitchell and John Piggott
Insurance and Demand for Medical Care, Mark Pauly PhD
Guaranteed Renewability Uniquely Prevents Adverse Selection in Individual Health Insurance, Mark Pauly PhD, Kai Menzel, Howard Kunreuther, and Richard A. Hirth
Development Challenges in a Postcrisis World, Claudia Sepúlveda, Ann Harrison, and Justin Yifu Lin
Submissions from 2010
Learning-by-Doing, Organizational Forgetting, and Industry Dynamics, David Besanko, Ulrich Doraszelski, Yaroslav Kryukov, and Mark Satterthwaite
On the Role of Demand and Strategic Uncertainty in Capacity Investment and Disinvestment Dynamics, David Besanko, Ulrich Doraszelski, Lauren Xiaoyuan Lu, and Mark A. Satterthwaite
A User’s Guide to Solving Dynamic Stochastic Games Using the Homotopy Method, Ron N. Borkovsky, Ulrich Doraszelski, and Yaroslav Kryukov
Avoiding Market Dominance: Product Compatibility in Markets With Network Effects, Jiawei Chen, Ulrich Doraszelski, and Joseph E. Harrington Jr
Computable Markov-perfect industry dynamics, Ulrich Doraszelski and Mark Satterthwaite
You Can Take It with You: Proposition 13 Tax Benefits, Residential Mobility, and Willingness to Pay for Housing Amenities, Fernando V. Ferreira
Stockpiling Anti-viral Drugs for a Pandemic: The Role of Manufacturer Reserve Programs, Joseph E. Harrington Jr and Edbert B. Hsu
The Health Insurance Reform Debate, Scott E. Harrington
Collective Investments for Pension Savings: Lessons from Singapore's Central Provident Fund scheme, Benedict SK Koh, Olivia S. Mitchell, and Joelle H. Fong
The Evolution of Retirement Risk Management, Olivia S. Mitchell and Robert L. Clark
Racial Discrimination Among NBA Referees, Joseph Price and Justin Wolfers
Stuck in the Middle: Impacts of Grade Configuration in Public Schools, Jonah E. Rockoff and Benjamin B. Lockwood
Beyond the Classroom: Using Title IX to Measure the Return to High School Sports, Betsey Stevenson
Submissions from 2009
Changes in the Incidence and Duration of Periods Without Insurance, David M. Cutler and Alexander M. Gelber
Beyond Plain Vanilla: Modeling Joint Product Assortment and Pricing Decisions, Michaela Draganska, Michael J. Mazzeo, and Katja Seim