Households regularly fail to make optimal financial decisions. But what are the underlying reasons for this? Using two conceptually distinct measures of time inconsistency based on bank account transaction data and behavioral measurement experiments, we show that the excessive use of bank...

Households regularly fail to make optimal financial decisions. But what are the underlying reasons for this? Using two conceptually distinct measures of time inconsistency based on bank account transaction data and behavioral measurement experiments, we show that the excessive use of bank...

We show that market discipline, defined as the extent to which firm specific risk characteristics are re ected in market prices, eroded during the recent financial crisis in 2008. We design a novel test of changes in market discipline based on the relation between firm specific risk...

We design a novel test for changes in market discipline based on the relation between firm-specific risk, credit spreads, and equity returns. We use our method to analyze the evolution of bailout expectations during the recent financial crisis. We find that bailout expectations peaked in...

This paper studies heterogeneity in the reaction to rank feedback. In a laboratory experiment, individuals take part in a series of dynamic real-effort contests with intermediate feedback. To solve the identification problem in estimating the causal effect of rank feedback on subsequent effort...

How does group identity affect belief formation? To address this question, we conduct a series of online experiments with a representative sample of individuals in the US. Using the setting of the 2020 US presidential election, we find evidence of intergroup preference across three distinct...

This study investigates the transition from being a listed company with a dispersed ownership structure to being a privately held company with a concentrated ownership structure. We consider a sample of private equity backed portfolio companies to evaluate the consequences of the corporate...

We are able to shed light on the black box of restructuring tools private equity investors use to improve the operational performance of their portfolio companies. By building on previous work considering performance evaluation of PE backed companies, we analyze whether private equity improves...

This paper proposes a new regulatory approach that implements capital requirements contingent on managerial compensation. We argue that excessive risk taking in the financial sector originates from the shareholder moral hazard created by government guarantees rather than from corporate...

This paper proposes a new regulatory approach that implements capital requirements contingent on executive incentive schemes. We argue that excessive risk-taking in the financial sector originates from the shareholder moral hazard created by government guarantees rather than from corporate...