Under Review
This paper examines whether increased awareness can affect racial bias and colorism. We exploit a natural experiment from the widespread publicity of Price and Wolfers (2010), which intensified scrutiny of racial bias in men's basketball officiating. We investigate refereeing decisions in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), an organization with a long-standing commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). We apply machine learning techniques to predict player race and to measure skin tone. Our empirical strategy exploits the quasi-random assignment of referees to games, combined with high-dimensional fixed effects, to estimate the relationship between referee-player racial and skin tone compositions and foul-calling behavior. We find no racial bias before the intense media coverage. However, we find evidence of overcorrection, whereby a player receives fewer fouls when facing more referees from the opposite race and skin tone. This overcorrection wears off over time, returning to zero-bias levels. We highlight the need to consider baseline levels of bias before applying any prescription with direct relevance to policymakers and organizations, given the recent discourse on DEI.
Under Review
This paper examines the impact of childbirth on the careers of skilled, self-employed women. Using panel data from the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour, I find that childbirth is followed by sharp declines in tournament earnings, participation, and objective performance measures that persist in the long run. I use an event-study difference-in-differences design around the first birth to test whether the scheduling and work-intensity flexibility inherent in self-employment attenuates the motherhood penalty documented for wage and salary workers.
A performance-weighted allocation mechanism for repeated contests (with Mats Duys, Tim Pawlowski, and Elias Tsakas)
Media: nytimes.com
In repeated strategic interactions with a final reward, such as employee promotions or grant allocations, a key challenge is designing mechanisms that encourage sustained high effort while ensuring equitable outcomes. Traditional methods, like lotteries or outcome-contingent rewards, often fall short, failing to maintain engagement and inadvertently discouraging early underperformers. We propose a performance-weighted allocation mechanism inspired by dynamic rating systems, which continuously adjusts each agent’s probability of receiving the reward based on cumulative performance relative to others. This adaptive design maintains engagement by linking reward probability to performance history, ensuring maximal effort as a subgame perfect equilibrium (SPE).
I4R discussion paper: A comment on “Agricultural Diversity, Structural Change, and Long-Run Development: Evidence from the United States” (with Zhanna Kapsalyamova, Wietse Mesman, and Victor Smirnov)
I4R discussion paper: A comment on “Private health investments under competing risks: Evidence from malaria control in Senegal” (with Martin Kroczek, Mukesh Kumar, and Felix Otto)
Managerial attribution of company performance (with Gábor Békés)
Making decision-making more approachable for K-12 students using tangible sports examples
Forthcoming...