In democracies voters rely on media outlets to learn about politically salient issues. This raises an important question: how strongly can media affect public perceptions? This paper uses a natural experiment - the staggered introduction of the Digital TV signal in Italy - to measure the effect...

Online platforms provide search tools that help consumers to get betterfitting product offers. But this technology makes consumer search behavior also easily traceable for the platform and allows for real-time price discrimination. Consumers face a trade-off: Search intensely and receive better...

This paper reports on experiments testing the viability of markets for cheap talk information. We find that the poor quality of the information transmitted leads to a collapse of information markets. The reasons for this are surprising given the previous experimental results on cheap-talk games....

This paper reports on experiments testing the viability of markets for cheap talk information. We find that the poor quality of the information transmitted leads to a collapse of information markets. The reasons for this are surprising given the previous experimental results on cheap-talk games....

I empirically show that the time delay firms face in raising outside capital affects cash holdings. I exploit the 2005 Securities Offering Reform (the Reform) as a quasi-natural experiment. For a subset of large public US firms, the Reform relaxed the requirement to undergo the standard review...

Using the SEC’s 2016 Tick Size Pilot Program (TSPP) as a natural experiment, we investigate the effects of investors’ information acquisition on equity versus debt financing. We find a significant increase in firms’ preference for equity over debt issuance after the TSPP’s...

This paper presents the results from a 2.3 million person field experiment that varies whether or not a job seeker sees the number of applicants for a job posting on a large job posting website, LinkedIn. This intervention increases the likelihood that a person will finish an application by...

Millions of people refuse COVID-19 vaccination. Using original data from two surveys in nine OECD countries, we analyze the determinants of anti-vax intentions in December 2020 and show that half of the anti-vax individuals were vaccinated by summer 2021. Vaccinations were more likely among...

Soil degradation, a serious environmental problem in many developing countries, often necessitates the use of fertilizers to improve crop yields. However, smallholders usually do not have sufficient information about their soil nutrient levels to make profit-maximizing decisions about fertilizer...

Many everyday activities are habitual. Among the most common human activities is communication. If people primarily communicate in a common-interests environment, they may form habits of truth-telling and believing messages. If they primarily communicate in a conflicting-interests environment,...