Microcredit seeks to promote business growth and improve well-being by expanding access to credit. We use a field experiment and follow-up survey to measure impacts of a credit expansion for microentrepreneurs in Manila. The effects are diffuse, heterogeneous, and surprising. Although there is...

The U.S. banking industry is experiencing a renewed focus on retail banking, a trend often attributed to the stability and profitability of retail activities. This paper examines the impact of banks' retail intensity on performance from 1997 to 2004 by developing three complementary definitions...

Despite recent innovations that might have reduced banks' reliance on brick-and-mortar branches for distributing retail financial services, the number of U.S. bank branches has continued to increase steadily over time. Further, an increasing percentage of these branches are held by banks with...

Has greater turbulence among firms fueled rising wage instability in the United States? Earlier research by Gottschalk and Moffitt shows that rising earnings instability was responsible for one-third to one-half of the rise in wage inequality during the 1980s. These growing transitory...

The recession started in 2008 constituted a massive shock to consumers and most firms all over the Western World. Firms were hit on their sales and finances. However, little is known on how badly they were hit and how they coped with the difficulties. This paper gives a rare and fairly early...

Ratios that indicate the statistical significance of a fund's alpha typically appraise its performance. A growing literature suggests that even in the absence of any ability to predict returns, holding options positions on the benchmark assets or trading frequently can significantly enhance...

One of the most salient and relevant dimensions of team heterogeneity is ethnicity. We measure the causal impact of ethnic diversity on the performance of business teams using a randomized field experiment. We follow 550 students who set up 45 real companies as part of their curriculum in an...

This paper is an attempt to understand the effects of leaders on organizational performance. We argue for an expert leader model of leadership. We differentiate between four kinds of leaders according to their level of inherent knowledge and industry experience. After controlling for confounding...

This paper applies a logistic smooth transition regression approach to the estimation of a homogenous aggregate value added production function of the State Owned (SOE) and Foreign-Funded Enterprises(FFE) in China, 1980s-2007. The transition associated with the economic reforms in China is...

This paper applies a logistic smooth transition regression approach to the estimation of a homogenous aggregate value added production function of the State Owned (SOE) and Foreign-Funded Enterprises (FFE) in China, 1980s-2007. The transition associated with the economic reforms in China is...