Research

Working Papers

"Performance Evaluation and Collaboration Matching between Industry and Academic" (Job Market Paper)

Abstract: This paper theoretically studies innovative collaborations where heterogeneous firms compete for heterogeneous academics. At an interim stage, there is an evaluation of the project, allowing firms to monitor academics and decide whether to abandon the project to avoid the loss from a future failure. This paper considers different evaluation structures and shows that in each case, the equilibrium matching is unique (either positive or negative assortative). Thus, the evaluation structure has important effects on equilibrium matching. Moreover, this paper analyzes the relationship between academic ability and incentives and discusses the robustness of the results.

Work in Progress

"From Rivals to Allies? CEO Connections in an Era of Common Ownership"  with Dennis Hutschenreiter (Draft available upon request)

Abstract: Can institutional shareholders influence the strategic decisions of top managers across their portfolio companies by leveraging CEOs' social connections? This paper demonstrates that firms with greater common ownership with a competitor in their industry are more inclined to select CEOs who have pre-existing social ties with the rival firm's chief executive. By exploiting exogenous changes to common ownership due to institutional investors' mergers, we find that having an additional common blockholder with a competitor significantly increases the likelihood of the hiring firm appointing a CEO connected to the rival company's top manager, with the odds increasing more than two-fold. Furthermore, establishing such a connection during the hiring process is associated with improved performance of same-industry rivals. It notably doubles the return on assets while reducing R&D investments of those firms whose CEOs are connected to the competitor's newly-hired chief executive. Our findings show greater economic and statistical significance when the industry is defined more narrowly.

"Working from Home and Worker's Performance during Covid-19"  with Laura Guillén and Florian Kunze (The first draft is coming soon)

Abstract: We study the possible interaction effect of the autonomy of working from home and managerial responsibilities and the effect on workers' engagement, performance, exhaustion, and job satisfaction. We use the data as part of the Konstanz Home Office Study and find a negative impact of working from home on the manager's behaviors. It is important for the manager to stay in contact with his/her team members, but the pandemic made it hard to maintain the stability of this connection. Therefore, working from home may only increase the engagement, performance, and satisfaction of those workers without managerial responsibilities.

Publications

"Similar-to-me Effects in the Grant Application Process: Applicants, Panellists, and the Likelihood of Obtaining Funds" 

Abstract: We analyze if and how the characteristics of grant research panels affect the applicants’ likelihood of obtaining funding,  especially if particular types  of panels favour particular types  of applicants. We use the  UK’s  Engineering and  Physical  Sciences  Research  Council (EPSRC) award decisions to test the similar-to-me hypothesis for the first time in the grant context. Our main results indicate that panel members tend to favour more (or penalise less) applicants with similar characteristics to them, as the similar-to-me hypothesis suggests. We show, for instance, that the quality of the applicants is more critical for panels of high quality than for panels of relatively lower quality, that basic-oriented panels tend to penalise applied-oriented applicants,  and that discussions with fewer female members tend to penalise teams with more female applicants. As a whole, we show that similar-to-me effects are simultaneously at work for a  wide variety of functional,  job-related research characteristics as well as for more well-known demographic attributes.

"The Impact of Consumers’ Regret on Firms’ Decisions in a Durable Good Market," Journal of Economics, 139, 125–157, 2023

Abstract: This paper studies how the consumer's anticipated regret affects the firms' pricing decisions and profits in a duopoly market. I consider a two-period game with differentiated durable products, where an incumbent sells a basic version over two periods, and an entrant releases an improved version in period 2, of which the improved features are difficult to assess by the consumers. This ambiguity will lead to regret. This paper focuses on two types of regret: a consumer may regret purchasing in period 1 instead of purchasing in period 2 (action regret); a consumer who waited until period 2 might regret not buying in period 1 (inaction regret). The consumers can anticipate the possible regret, which will influence the consumer's decision-making. The results show that both types of anticipated regret may increase or decrease the incumbent’s profit. In contrast, action (inaction) regret always benefits (harms) the entrant. Besides, the analysis indicates that the improved version's quality may either strengthen or weaken the impact of regret. Moreover, this paper examines the robustness of the results under different setups.

"Education Choices and Job Market Characteristics" with Inés Macho-Stadler, Economics Letters, 223, 110985, 2023

Abstract:  We propose a simple three-stage model where heterogeneous schools compete via tuition fees, individuals with the ex-ante unknown ability make their education choices to (eventually) get a diploma and reveal their ability, and finally the job market determines the assignment of workers to firms and the equilibrium wages. In equilibrium, wages in the labor market and schools’ fees and individuals’ school choices are strongly related. We also analyze the effects of the existence of a public school or a subsidy on social welfare. 

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