Upcoming Presentations

Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of regional minimum wage increases on nonemployer business establishments in the United States. We develop a theoretical model of occupational choice motivating our empirical analysis. The effects of minimum wages are estimated using panel data analysis and an identification strategy that compares nonemployer establishments in contiguous counties across neighboring states. Our analysis employs data from the Nonemployer Statistics provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, spanning from 2001 to 2020. The findings indicate that a $1 increase in the minimum wage leads to a 0.5%-0.9% decrease in the number of nonemployer businesses, likely due to relatively more attractive wage employment. This shift is smaller in counties characterized by higher percentages of Hispanics, African Americans, Asians, and females, and lower percentages of high school graduates. Conversely, higher minimum wages increase the number of nonemployers in the transportation sector as individuals are pushed into the gig economy, which is not covered by minimum wages. Further analysis based on various data sources from official statistics reveals that higher minimum wages discourage transitions from nonemployer to employer status and instead increase transitions from self-employment to wage employment and unemployment. Our findings add perspective to the debate on minimum wages by showing how this regulation affects nonemployers as an important part of their regional institutional environment.

Abstract: The increasing frequency of extreme weather events poses significant socioeconomic challenges, particularly for vulnerable populations in developing countries. This paper investigates the impact of temperature exposure on intimate partner violence (IPV) using individual-level data from the 2008 Bolivian Demographic and Health Survey matched with high-resolution daily climate data. Employing a temperature binning approach with fixed effects, I find substantial heterogeneous effects by altitude: in low-altitude areas, ten additional days of extreme cold (below 21°C) or extreme heat (33°C or higher) significantly increase IPV incidence by 3.6 and 2.2 percentage points, respectively, while moderate cold temperatures reduce IPV incidence. Moreover, cold exposure increases IPV through heightened male alcohol consumption and income instability, particularly in rural and indigenous communities, while heat exposure reduces women’s employment in urban, non-indigenous households. Overall, the results demonstrate that the effects of temperature exposure are highly contextual and heterogeneous, underscoring the need for climate adaptation policies that are sensitive to socioeconomic status and gender so that they can contribute to the broader goal of reducing violence against women.

Abstract: This research explores experimentally whether information acquisition depends on the biases in learning and whose strategy is implemented in a Bayesian learning task. In the first section of the experiment, participants report their expected posterior for them and another participants. I measured the deviation from Bayes’ rule for each participant. In the second section, I elicit the willingness to pay to observe signal and implement a rule based on their posterior beliefs. On average, participants expect others to have the same posterior beliefs. However, participants exhibit a larger willingness to pay for a signal realization when they implement their strategy rather than the strategy of another participant. Finally, participants value information less when they are more conservative in their posterior relative to Bayes rule.

Abstract: I develop a direct measure of managerial attention to financial markets using managers’ own discussions of market conditions during earnings calls covering nearly all U.S. public firms from 2007–2023. Attention varies widely across industries, across firms, and within firms over time. Managers who pay greater attention to financial markets exhibit higher investment–price sensitivity. Attention also enhances managers’ ability to access external capital when financing needs arise, in part by enabling them to respond more effectively to changing market conditions. Ultimately, managerial attention is a first-order behavioral mechanism through which financial markets exert real effects.