By Samiha B. Tariq (Job Market Paper; October 15, 2025)

I assemble 94,039 trades from 26 major Ethereum NFT PFP collections and extract 196 visual descriptors (palette structure, saturation at the focal region, curvature, texture; plus compact CNN/Gram - deep learning components). I show that transparent, human-readable traits carry robust premia, while “black-box” deep embeddings add little once explicit traits enter while brand premium plays a vital role. Trait premia are state-dependent—they expand in hot markets and compress or flip in cool ones—so I estimate a cycle-aware Bayesian dynamic hedonic to track those shifts.

By Samiha B. Tariq (May 24, 2025)

I study how investor psychology changes market outcomes using a simple static Bayesian game. In the model, one investor may be overconfident or risk-averse (private information), while another herds by following what appears to be the majority. Solving for a Bayesian Nash equilibrium shows that these biases shift portfolio choices and, through herding and beliefs, can amplify trading volume, volatility, and even bubbles—consistent with bounded rationality. The takeaway is practical: markets move not only on fundamentals but also on beliefs about others’ biases, so policies that improve transparency and curb momentum-chasing can help stabilize outcomes. 

By Mohammad Enamul Hoque, Tahmina Akhter, Faik Bilgili, Md. Akther Uddin & Samiha B. Tariq; Published in Computational Economics (September 09, 2025).

We map how oil price shocks, global conditions, and financial stress interact across South and Southeast Asia (1997–2022) and show that these links change over time and across frequencies. Long-run spillovers are more persistent, with global conditions and specific markets (e.g., Singapore, Thailand) acting as key shock transmitters, while several others (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Philippines) tend to absorb shocks. Global uncertainty indices (EPU, VIX, GFSI, GPR, CPU) amplify connectedness, especially around the GFC, 2014–15 oil shock, COVID-19, and recent war periods—insights investors and policymakers can use to position risk and policy ahead of the next regime shift.

By Samiha B. Tariq & Weikang Zhang (May 27, 2025)

We study how consumer confidence and household credit move together in the U.S. using monthly data from 1978–2024 and a VECM. We find a stable long-run link: when confidence rises, borrowing expands; in the short run, credit adjusts slowly and reacts more to liquidity (M2) than to mood. Impulse responses show confidence shocks lift credit persistently, while credit spikes only briefly dent sentiment—insights that matter for policy and risk management.

By Samiha B. Tariq (August 2024) 

Using data on 53,380 people across ~198 countries (2013–2019), I show that happier individuals are more likely to be married. Logistic regressions—and a simple static Bayesian game that frames marriage as a choice under beliefs—both point to the same result: emotional well-being raises the probability of marriage, even after controls. The takeaway is practical for policy: supporting well-being isn’t just good in itself—it also aligns with key family outcomes.