Research

Publications

The effects of the Affordable Care Act on Seasonal Agricultural Workers, (with Jeffrey Perloff)  Journal of The Agricultural and Applied Economic Association (2022) [Paper] 

Abstract: This study investigates the effects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) policies (Medicaid expansion, health insurance premium subsidy, and tax penalty) on farmworkers' health insurance coverage and healthcare utilization. Using the National Agricultural Worker Survey, we find that the ACA policies substantially raised the share of seasonal farmworkers with medical insurance. It significantly increased workers' use of preventive medical services and decreased the use of hospitals, including emergency rooms, which was a goal of the law's proponents. These effects did not significantly differ between workers with and without a pre-existing medical condition.

Working Papers

Abstract: Platforms connecting providers and consumers set parameters such as default options for terms like delivery times, tip suggestions, and auto-renewals, often masking requirements, making normative proposals, or deliberately providing nudges to aid or influence consumers’ choices. This paper studies these interactions using a structural model based on experimental and field data on tipping behavior among NYC Yellow taxi passengers. The model explains how consumers’ preferences for normative behavior and the convenience of default options interplay in shaping decision-making processes. The results reveal a significant economic impact of how norm conformity affects choice behavior and that opting out of platform recommendations imposes considerable cognitive costs on passengers. For instance, opting out of default tips incurs, on average, an additional cost of about 7.8% of the standard fare ($12), and a tip that is five percentage points below the norm results in a norm deviation cost of about 6.6% of the fare. Counterfactual simulations indicate that the revenue-maximizing default tip configurations could increase profits by five percent and consumer welfare by 25%. In sum, this is an aggregate welfare increase of 53% relative to tipping in the absence of default options.

Media Coverage: Forbes, WSJ, WSJ, Stanford Insights, Marginal Revolution

Presented at: Psychology and Economics Lunch Series (UCB), IO Seminar Series (UCB), Science & Philanthropy Initiative Conference, Haas School of Business Marketing Seminar Series, Stanford GSB Marketing Seminar, Stanford GSB Rising Scholars Conference, Chicago Booth Marketing Seminar, Stanford Institute of Theoretical Economics, Marketing Science Conference, Public and Labor Economics Workshop (Texas A&M), Simon Business School Marketing Seminar (University of Rochester), IAREP-SABE 2021 Virtual Conference, Virtual Quantitative Marketing Seminar, BASS FORMS Conference (UT Dallas), 2022 World Economic Science Association Conference (MIT), Stanford Behavioral and Experimental Economics Seminar.


Abstract: This paper examines how beliefs and preferences drive identity-conforming consumption or investments. We introduce a theory that explains how identity distorts individuals' beliefs about potential outcomes and imposes psychic costs on benefiting from identity-incongruent sources. We substantiate our theoretical foundation through two lab-in-field experiments on soccer betting in Kenya and the UK, where participants either had established affiliations with the teams involved or assumed a neutral stance. The results indicate that soccer fans have overoptimistic beliefs about match outcomes that align with their identity and bet significantly higher amounts on those than on outcomes of comparable games where they are neutral. After accounting for individuals' beliefs and risk preferences, our structural estimates reveal that participants undervalue gains from identity-incongruent assets by 9% to 27%. Our counterfactual simulations imply that identity-specific beliefs account for 30% to 44% of the investment differences between neutral observers and supporters, with the remainder being due to identity preferences. 

Presented at: Stanford Institute of Theoretical Economics, Stanford GSB Marketing Seminar, Kellogg School of Management, Ross School of Business (University of Michigan), Virtual Experimental Economics Seminar Series (Middlebury), Imperial College London, MIT Sloan, Cornell, UChicago.


Works in Progress

Abstract: This study investigates factors that cause behavioral departures from foundational assumptions that undergird standard economic models and how persistent these factors are for long-run behavior.


Abstract: This study explores how religious constraints impact labor supply decisions and outcomes. In particular, it focuses on whether there are significant changes in working hours before or after Ramadan, potentially indicating a departure from the expected labor smoothing.