Direct experience of a peer’s punishment might make non-punished peers reassess the probability and consequences of facing punishment and hence induce a change in their behavior. We test this mechanism in a setting, China, in which we observe the reactions to the same peer’s punishment by...

Trust between parties should drive the negotiation and design of contract: if parties did not trust each others' reaction to unplanned events, they might agree to pay higher costs of negotiation to complete contracts. Using a unique sample of U.S. principal-agent consulting contracts and a...

Trust between parties should drive contract design: if parties were suspicious about each others' reaction to unplanned events, they might agree to pay higher costs of negotiation ex ante to complete contracts. Using a unique sample of U.S. consulting contracts and a negative shock to trust...

Liquidity-constrained large shareholders often reallocate capital within business groups to finance their own projects, imposing credit constraints on other group members. Using microdata from Chinese customs, we study the impact of this negative externality on the transmission of exchange-rate...

Firms adjust output prices to cost decreases with a delay relative to cost increases. I document firms' operating income becomes less persistent when their input costs decrease than when their costs increase. The stocks of firms slowly cutting output prices due to asymmetric output-price...

Firms adjust output prices to cost decreases with a delay relative to cost increases. I document firms' operating income becomes less persistent when their input costs decrease than when their costs increase. The stocks of firms slowly cutting output prices due to asymmetric output-price...

Direct experience of a peer’s punishment might make non-punished peers reassess the probability and consequences of facing punishment and hence induce a change in their behavior. We test this mechanism in a setting, China, in which we observe the reactions to the same peer’s punishment by...