This paper characterizes the optimal advertising strategy of candidates in an election campaign, where groups of heterogeneous voters are targeted through media outlets. We discuss its effects on the implemented policy and relate it to the well-documented increase in polarization. Additionally,...

We explain persistent differences in cultural traits of immigrant groups with the presence of community leaders. Leaders influence the cultural traits of their community, which have an impact on the group's earnings. They determine whether a community will be more assimilated and wealthier or...

This paper documents gender differences in social ties and develops a theory that links them to disparities in men's and women's labor market performance. Men's networks lead to better access to information, women's to higher peer pressure. Both affect effort in a model of teams, each beneficial...

We study lobbying in a setting in which decision-makers share resources in a network. Two opposing interest groups choose which decision-maker they want to target with their resource provision, and their decision depends on the decision-makers' ideologies as well as the network structure. We...

We highlight that convergence in repeated averaging models commonly used to study cultural traits or opinion dynamics is not equivalent to convergence in Markov chain settings if transition matrices are time-varying. We then establish a new proof for the convergence of cultural traits in the...

This paper surveys the existing literature on religious and cultural leaders. It discusses potential motivations of a leader and highlights that irrespective of his/her exact motivations, the presence of a leader is crucial for the cultural heterogeneity of a society. The impact of...

The fraction of women in economics has grown significantly over the last forty years. In spite of this, the differences in research output between men and women are large and persistent. These output differences are related to differences in the co-authorship networks of men and women: women...

Why do women hit the glass ceiling? Women are hired, but then fail to rise through the ranks. We propose a novel explanation for this pattern, namely preference- and belief-free discrimination. In our setting, an employer can increase effort by inducing differential value distributions for a...

We offer a novel explanation for why some immigrant groups and minorities have persistent, distinctive cultural traits - the presence of a rigid institution. Such an institution is necessary for communities to not fully assimilate to the mainstream society. We distinguish between different types...

We consider the implications of gender homophily in Economics, which has persisted despite the significant increase in women in the field. As women remain underrepresented, gender homophily may serve as a constraint in collaboration. It could also lead to less gender diverse co-author teams than...