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...

We combine network formation and information transmission in a simple model and predict that people reveal less information when talking to those with a different identity. Furthermore, individuals prefer to talk to people with the same identity when there is a greater incentive to collect...

SMS information campaigns are increasingly used for policy. We conduct a field experiment to study information sharing through mobile phone messages. Subjects are rural households in Mozambique who have access to mobile money. In the baseline intervention, subjects receive an SMS containing...

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,...