We exploit anonymized administrative data provided by a major fintech platform to investigate whether using alternative data to assess borrowers' creditworthiness results in broader credit access. Comparing actual outcomes of the fintech platform's model to counterfactual outcomes based on a...

Reputation is critical to foster trust in online marketplaces, yet leaving feedback is a public good that can be under-provided unless buyers are rewarded for it. Signaling theory implies that only high quality sellers would reward buyers for truthful feedback. We explore this scope for...

Using unique data on Canadian households, we assess the impact of financial advisors on their clients' portfolios. We find that advisors induce their clients to take more risk, thereby raising expected returns. On the other hand, we find limited evidence of customization: advisors direct clients...

We examine the role of consumption externalities in the demand for pharmaceuticals at both the brand level and over a therapeutic class of drugs. These effects emerge when use of a drug by others affects its value, and/or conveys information abut efficacy and safety to patients and physicians....

Knowledge of the effect of unearned income on economic behavior of individuals in general, and on labor supply in particular, is of great importance to policy makers. Estimation of income effects, however, is a difficult problem because income is not randomly assigned and exogenous changes in...

We investigate the informativeness of hygiene signals in online reviews, and their effect on consumer choice and restaurant hygiene. We first extract signals of hygiene from Yelp. Among all dimensions that regulators monitor through mandated restaurant inspections, we find that reviews are more...

There is growing interest in market design using default rules and other choice architecture principles to steer consumers toward desirable outcomes. Using data from Massachusetts' health insurance exchange, we study an "automatic retention" policy intended to prevent coverage interruptions...

We exploit a quasi-experiment created when New York State began in 2011 to tax cigarettes sold on Native American Reservations. The regime change represents a unique opportunity to quantify brand loyalty because it almost doubled the price of premium-brand cigarettes, while Native brands were...

A policy debate centers around the question how news aggregators such as Google News affect traffic to online news sites. Many publishers view aggregators as substitutes for traditional news consumption while aggregators view themselves as complements because they make news discovery easier. We...

We use population administrative data from Sweden to study adherence to 63 medication-related guidelines. We compare the adherence of patients without personal access to medical expertise to the adherence of those with access, namely doctors and their close relatives. We estimate that, among...