Publications
Can firms avoid tough patent examiners through examiner-shopping? Strategic timing of citations in USPTO patent applications - with Luis Diestre, Strategic Management Journal, 2022, 43(9), 1854-1871
Abstract: We claim that, because patent citations influence examiner selection, firms disclose citations strategically to influence which examiner is assigned to their application (“examiner-shopping”). Specifically, firms are more likely to cite patents reviewed by “lenient” examiners in their original information disclosure statement (IDS) (sent before the examiner has been selected), and delay citations to patents reviewed by “tough” examiners to subsequent IDS (sent once the examiner has been selected). We propose this strategy will be implemented by those firms who benefit the most (firms that face patent thickets and are developing high strategic-stakes technologies) but only when the costs are low (when firms face a low probability of patent litigation). We find support to our theory in a sample of 9,763 United States patent and trademark office (USPTO) patent applications during 2000 to 2006.
The Friday Effect: Firm Lobbying, the Timing of Drug Safety Alerts, and Drug Side-Effects - with Luis Diestre and Juan Santaló, Management Science, 2020, 66(8), 3295-3798
Pushing for Speed or Scope? Pharmaceutical Lobbying and FDA Drug Review - with Luis Diestre, Strategic Management Journal, 2019, 40(8), 1194-1218
Abstract: We argue firms implementing political activities face a fundamental trade-off between the content and the speed of public officials’ decisions. We show evidence of this trade-off looking at FDA drug approvals: lobbying for broader drugs leads to longer revisions, whereas lobbying to speed up the review process leads to narrower drugs. How do firms respond to this trade-off? We argue firms’ lobbying strategies depend upon the level of IP protection behind their drugs. We predict that firms with high levels of IP protection will lobby for drug scope, whereas firms with low levels of IP protection will lobby for revision speed. We find support for our theory in a sample of 540 new drug applications to the FDA from 1998 to 2015.
Ideology & Combat Motivation: Propaganda & German Soldier's Performance in World War II - with Charles Miller, World Politics, 2019, 71(3), 457-502
Abstract: What explains variation in soldiers’ willingness to fight? Scholars claim that monitor- ing, material rewards, and punishment of soldiers alone are insufficient explanations. Yet competing ideological accounts of motivation are problematic since ideas are difficult to operationalize and measure. To solve this, we combine extensive information on German soldiers combat performance from World War Two with conditionally exogenous exposure to Nazi radio propaganda. We find evidence that soldiers with higher exposure to propaganda are more likely to be decorated for valor even after controlling for socio-economic factors, Nazi membership, home district characteristics, and proxies for combat exposure.The Origin of Wealth Matters: Merit, Fairness, and Equality in the Ultimatum Game - with William English, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2019, 158, 33-43
Abstract: How are fairness norms determined? In redistributive contexts, we argue fairness norms depend upon the origin of wealth. To test our theory we run the Ultimatum Game with three treatments: earned income, lottery income, and standard. When subject earn money their modal response ceases to be a 50/50 split. Rather their response anchors around comparative earnings, and is statistically different from the other two treatments. Furthermore, there is heterogeneity in participants' offers. Strikingly, roughly half of lower earners take less than 50% of the pot on average, even though a 50/50 split would almost assuredly be accepted.The Specialization Curse: Economic Specialization and its Effect on Public Goods Provision - with Nimah Mazaheri, Business and Politics, 2019, 21(3), 415-444
Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between economic specialization and government expenditures. We hypothesize that firms and citizens in economically specialized regions pressure politicians to invest in core economic sectors in lieu of spending on public goods that benefit the broader economy, such as education. We test our hypothesis by looking at the US and India. We demonstrate a negative relationship between economically specialized US states and education spending, and a positive relationship between economically specialized US states and firm subsidies. Next, we examine the effect of an exogenous change in economic specialization by comparing Indian states created from federal bifurcation. We show how the creation of two highly specialized states (Bihar and Jharkhand) from a diversified state (Undivided Bihar) produced a decline in education spending but an increase in subsidies for core sectors. Our findings carry implications for the research on economic development, geography, federalism, and natural resource dependence.Revisiting the Democracy-Private Investment Nexus: Does Inequality Matter? - with Kemal Kivanc Akoz, Jeffery Jensen, & Christina Zenker, Journal of Comparative Economics, 2018, 40(4), 1215-1233
Abstract: Contrary to the predictions of a large theoretical literature, recent cross-country evidence suggests autocracies can generate statistically indistinguishable levels of private investment compared to democracies. We argue that the previous exclusion of inequality explains part of this puzzle. We model current investment as a function of investors' beliefs about future tax rates, which are conditioned by the constraints on the Executive in setting tax rates and expropriating tax revenues. In democracies, where tax rates reflect the preferences of the median voter, investment declines with rising inequality. In autocracies, investor beliefs about future tax rates reflect the relative power of Elites compared to the Executive. As inequality rises, the increased resources available to Elites constrains the Executive's ability to expropriate more tax revenues. The heterogeneous determinants of investor beliefs can explain the observed pattern of investment across regime types. We first test our predictions at the macro-level with cross-country macroeconomic data. We then test the behavioral underpinnings of our model with a novel laboratory experiment showing how inequality affects individual-level investment behavior dependent upon regime type. Results from both types of analyses show that when inequality is taken into account autocracies can generate similar levels of investment to democracies.Indoctrination and coercion in agent motivation: Evidence from Nazi Germany - with Charles Miller & Shuvo Bakar, Rationality and Society, 2018, 30(2), 189-219
Abstract: How do principals combine indoctrination and coercion to motivate their agents? Based on previous literature, we argue that indoctrination on the one hand and coercion on the other are substitutes in agent motivation—more of one requires less of the other. But measuring this substitution effect is hard since individuals often self-select into ideological organizations and have incentives to claim insincerely to be ideologically motivated. Using a novel dataset of wartime behavior contained in a large sample of World War II German service records, we present a solution to these problems. We find convincing evidence to support our theory—the German army was able to induce similar effort levels from soldiers who had and had not been in the Hitler Youth, though Hitler Youth alumni required fewer punishments.It's Only Money: Do Voters Treat Human and Financial Sunk Costs the Same? - with Charles Miller, Journal of Peace Research, 2016, 53(1): 116–129 . Nils Petter Gleditsch JPR Article of the Year Award
Abstract: The sunk costs fallacy is an important concept in the academic and policy worlds. It has helped explain consequential national security decisions such as the escalation in Vietnam and the surges in Iraq and Afghanistan. While previous analysis of sunk costs in international relations has made no distinction between financial and human sunk costs, there is evidence in psychology that people treat human lives and financial costs differently. The consensus in the casualty sensitivity literature is that human sunk costs should lower support for a conflict, but there is as yet no evidence on whether financial costs operate in the same way. Using the Environmental Protection Agency’s value of a statistical life to equalize human and financial costs, we create survey experiments through Mechanical Turk and GfK/Knowledge Networks about a hypothetical US military intervention to test if financial and human costs have the same effects on public opinion. We find that public reaction to sunk costs is contingent on the type of costs incurred. Consistent with the growing ‘sunk costs skeptic’ literature we find no evidence that any sunk costs induce greater commitment to a mission. Where the US contribution to the conflict is purely financial, sunk costs induce a desire to cut losses. When intervention involves US lives, sunk costs make no difference to the level of support. Finally, contrary to the implicit assumptions of past policymakers, ex ante levels of public support for sending troops and sending money are indistinguishable. These findings hold true both in situations involving high Iraq War level sunk costs and low Somalia-style costs.Lobbying and the Collective Action Problem: Comparative Evidence from Enterprise Surveys - with Jan Pierskalla & Simon Weschle, Business and Politics 2014, 16(2): 221--246. Journal Link
Abstract: Firm lobbying is traditionally thought of as a non-excludable good subject to collective action problems most easily solved by concentrated industries. However, there is very little empirical support for this, leading to increased focus on the private benefits of lobbying. We address a major shortcoming of the literature: it's near-exclusive usage of data from the United States. Using firm-level from up to 74 countries and Extreme Bounds Analysis to account for model uncertainty, we find no support that industry concentration is a predictor of lobbying activity, no matter whether we estimate pooled hierarchical or country-specific models. Employing Bayesian variable selection techniques, we instead show that firm-level variables such as size or exporter status are robustly associated with the propensity to lobby. This leads support to the notion that private returns to lobbying outweigh collective benefits in a comparative setting.The Behavioral Foundations of Social Politics - with Pablo Beramendi and Erik Wibbels - Comparative Political Studies 2013, 46(10): 1155-1189
Abstract: Often the literature on the welfare state is divisive. The Meltzer-Richards model claims that individuals will wish to redistribute based solely on relative income motivations. Models using risk hedging suggests individuals will respond to their labor market volatility. However in the real world, social spending is a combination of risk hedging and redistribution. How do voters parse out these different signals while voting for social policy? We investigate this using a laboratory experiment and survey data across the US.