Competition among firms can have many positive outcomes, including decreased prices and improved quality. Yet competition can have a darker side when firms can gain competitive advantage through illicit and corrupt activities. In this paper, we argue that competition can lead organizations to...

This paper shows that access to finance is a crucial factor in explaining the link between the historical African slave trade and current GDP. We show that (1) the slave trade is strongly linked to modern firm access to finance, (2) the slave trade is associated with reduced access to both...

Automotive manufacturers are known to use deadline-based convex incentives to motivate dealerships to sell new cars. This paper shows that dealerships respond to these incentive targets by pushing customers from used to new cars as the end of the month approaches, and that subprime loans written...

Partisan identity shapes social, mental, economic, and physical life. Using a novel dataset, we study the consequences of partisan identity by examining the immediate impact of electoral loss and victory on happiness and sadness. Employing a quasi-experimental regression discontinuity model we...

Competition among firms yields many benefits but can also encourage firms to engage in corrupt or unethical activities. We argue that competition can lead organizations to provide services that customers demand but that violate government regulations, especially when price competition is...

In this paper we explore how organizations influence the unethical behavior of their employees. Using a unique dataset of over 3 million vehicle emissions tests, we find strong evidence of ethical spillovers from firms to individuals. When inspectors work across different organizations, they...

This paper argues that consumer demand for unethical behavior such as fraud can impact employee turnover through market and psychological forces. Widespread conditions of unethical demand can improve career prospects for employees of unethical firms through higher income and stability associated...