Viernes 13 de diciembre

Marcos Manuel Salgado | UdeSA

"Why do People Follow Leaders? Evidence from 1936 Spain"

Abstract

We study why subordinates followed their leaders in the Spanish Coup of 1936. We find that the 1936 chain of command was widely broken, but subordinates followed their former leaders. Officers who had served under rebel leaders before 1936 were thirteen percentage points more likely to join the rebellion. Our identification strategy exploits rotation among military leaders to compare officers exposed to rebel leaders to their peers who served in the same posting a few years before or after. We show that our control and treatment samples are balanced in many covariates and that our findings are not driven by selection. We also study the mechanisms behind our results, ruling out indoctrination and finding support for leaders as coordination devices and for career concerns.

Marcos Manuel Salgado es profesor asistente en FGV EPGE en Rio de Janeiro, graduado del doctorado en Political Economics de Stanford GSB, antes graduado de la maestria en Economía y la licenciatura en Ciencia Política de UdeSA. Sus areas de investigacion incluyen Economía Política, Historia Económica y Economía de las Organizaciones.

Viernes 6 de diciembre

Andrea Vial | New York University

"Masculinity workplace norms produce gender segregation by devaluing the female social identity"

Abstract

Occupational gender segregation is a persistent issue, as many women and many men continue to work in occupational silos. In this presentation, I take a social psychological perspective to discuss how a strong masculinity work culture (a workplace ethos of male dominance), prevalent in male-dominated organizations, actively contributes to gender segregation. Drawing from the identity engagement model of social identity threat, a field study and three experiments demonstrate how strong masculinity norms in the workplace promote the devaluation of the female social identity (i.e., women’s gender ingroup), which in turn discourages women’s participation by undermining their personal sense of status. Field data with balanced numbers of men and women working in male-dominated, female-dominated, and gender-neutral industries reveal that strong masculinity norms are more prevalent in workplaces where women are underrepresented, and that women (but not men) report personally feeling lower status in these workplaces. Two experiments further show that people assume that female employees elicit less status than male employees (i.e., are less respected, admired, and well-regarded) in a workplace with strong masculinity norms, and that this devaluation of the female social identity undermines women’s personal sense of status in those environments. As A result, women are less interested than men in joining a hypothetical company described as having a strong masculinity work culture (vs. weak masculine or control). Across studies, masculinity norms undermine women’s sense of status and discourage their participation above and beyond any effects of the estimated percentage of female employees in the organization, highlighting the key role of workplace norms in maintaining gender segregation. A final experiment leverages these insights to show that when the perceived status of the female social identity is enhanced, women no longer anticipate feeling lower status than men in workplaces with strong masculinity norms, and they are more interested in joining these workplaces. As a whole, these findings underscore the deleterious effects of strong masculinity workplace norms for gender diversity, as these norms are not a mere side effect of the overrepresentation of men, but actively contribute to maintaining gender segregation by devaluing the female social identity.

Dr. Andrea Vial is Assistant Professor of Psychology at New York University Abu Dhabi, Global Network Assistant Professor at New York University, and the director of the Social Roles and Beliefs Lab, which is dedicated to investigating the psychology of gender employment segregation. Dr. Vial earned her PhD in Social Psychology from Yale University in 2018, and she was a Postdoctoral Associate at New York University prior to joining New York University Abu Dhabi in 2020. Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach with emphasis on experimental methodologies, drawing from social psychological, sociological, organizational, and developmental perspectives to investigate the psychological processes that shape individuals’ career choices and how norms and stereotypes constrain their opportunities. She’s particularly interested in understanding how gender prejudice spreads in organizations, how people think of leadership in gender-stereotypic ways, and how work culture reflects and reinforces gender employment segregation. Dr. Vial’s research has been published in Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, The Leadership Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, among other scientific outlets. Her work has also been featured by media outlets such as Forbes, NPR, World Economic Forum, and Science Magazine.

Viernes 29 de noviembre

Rocío Titiunik | Princeton University

"Measuring Politicians' Charisma with Text"

Abstract

We propose a text-based measure of a politician's charisma based on text. Our point of departure is a list of politicians who served in the recent past, for whom we collect a corpus of news articles. We use a supervised machine learning approach to  create a measure of charisma based on the language used in these articles. Our approach has the following steps: (i) label a small collection of texts according to whether they employ charismatic terms, (ii) train a model that identifies the most important features of the texts in predicting whether charismatic terms are present, (iii) deploy the trained model to the entire corpus and  classify each article according to whether they contain charismatic terms, and (iv) calculate, for every politician, the proportion of the news articles about them that contains charismatic terms. The result is a continuous measure of charisma based on text for each politician, which we validate against vote shares.

Rocío Titiunik is a Professor of Politics at Princeton University, where she is also the Director of the Data-Driven Social Science Initiative, and an associated faculty with the School of Public and International Affairs. She specializes in quantitative methodology for the social and behavioral sciences, with emphasis on quasi-experimental methods for causal inference and program evaluation. Her research interests lie at the intersection of political economy, political science, statistics, and data science, particularly on the development and application of quantitative methods to the study of political institutions.

Viernes 22 de noviembre

George Loewenstein | Yale University

"Attention-based Utility"

Abstract

In this talk, I will explore key aspects of human attention that hold particular significance for economics, leading to the introduction of the concept of attention-based utility. This concept highlights how an individual's well-being at any moment is shaped not only by their objective circumstances but also by what they focus on—whether that involves their surroundings, internal states, or memories. I will then present findings from a field study and three experiments that demonstrate how investor attention is shaped by hedonic factors and examine the resulting impact on investor behavior.

George Loewenstein is the Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Economics and Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. He received his PhD from Yale University in 1985 and since then has held academic positions at The University of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon University, and fellowships at Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, The Russell Sage Foundation and The Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. He is one of the founders of the field of behavioral economics and more recently of the field of neuroeconomics.  He is past president of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  Loewenstein's research focuses on applications of psychology to economics, and his specific interests include decision making over time, bargaining and negotiations, psychology and health, law and economics, the psychology of adaptation, the role of emotion in decision making, the psychology of curiosity, conflict of interest, and "out of control" behaviors such as impulsive violent crime and drug addiction.  He has published over 300 journal articles and book chapters, and has written or edited 6 books on topics ranging from intertemporal choice to behavioral economics to emotions.

Viernes 8 de noviembre

Sergio Petralia | Utrecht University

"Innovation Complementarities in Open Source Software"

Abstract

This article shows that organizations synchronize their patenting activity and contributions to Open Source Software (OSS), providing evidence that the ‘open source puzzle’ can be understood as an organizational response to OSS projects being complementary to their innovation processes. These findings result from analysing the timing of patent filings and OSS submissions using a novel database that links two decades of contributions to 50 of the most popular OSS projects with patent filings in the United States for 1203 organizations, which represent the 25.5 % of all patents granted and the 38 % of all OSS contributions in this period.

Sergio Petralia is an assistant professor at Utrecht University and a former postdoctoral researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Science and fellow of the Center for International Development's Growth Lab. Sergio is currently working on issues related to technological change and innovation. Most recent research projects study innovation processes in software. Sergio holds a Bachelors in Economics from the University of Buenos Aires, a Masters in Economics from the University of San Andres in Buenos Aires, and Msc in Economics from Pennsylvania State University in the U.S. He finished his Ph.D. at Utrecht University in 2017.

Viernes 1 de noviembre

Paula Margaretic | University of Toulouse

"Category Learning, Trade Volume, and Artificial Intelligence"

Abstract

This paper presents a noisy rational expectations model in which attention-constrained investors allocate their attention between asset-specific fundamentals and categorical factors influencing groups of assets. The model predicts that more attention is directed toward larger categories, which leads to increased trade volumes in assets belonging to those categories. We empirically validate these predictions by analyzing data from the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), focusing on how users mention and co-mention assets over time. We construct a dynamic network of co-mentions and use community detection algorithms to produce time-varying measures of asset-specific and categorical attention. We then explore the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on investors’ behavior, showing that AI enhances categorical attention while also increasing selectivity in community formation. Finally, we find that AI negatively influences trade volume and positively correlates with trade volume volatility. Our results have significant implications for understanding the role of AI in reshaping market dynamics and investor behavior.

Paula Margaretic holds a PhD in Finance from the University of Toulouse (2012), and is currently working at the University of Chile, as a researcher and assistant professor of finance. Previously, she worked at the University Adolfo Ibañez (Chile), San Andrés University in Argentina, Central Bank of Chile, Airbus France, Banco Santander in Argentina and Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (UADE) in Argentina, among others.

Viernes 25 de octubre

María Lombardi | UTDT

"University selectivity and degree completion"

Abstract

We study the effect of being admitted to a more selective university program on degree completion. Using data from the centralized university admission system in Chile, we use a regression discontinuity design with students at the margin of admission between relatively more and less selective university programs. We find that students marginally admitted to a more selective program are 2.7 percentage points less likely to graduate from the first program they enroll in. Students from higher income households compensate by transferring and graduating elsewhere.

María Lombardi es profesora e investigadora a tiempo completo en la Escuela de Gobierno de la Universidad Torcuato Di Tella e investigadora asociada del CEPE Di Tella. Su investigación se enfoca en estudiar el impacto de políticas públicas en países en desarrollo, principalmente en el sector educativo. Sus investigaciones han sido publicadas en Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Economic Growth, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Labour Economics y Economics of Education Review, entre otros.

Viernes 18 de octubre 

Antonella Mancino | Wilfrid Laurier University

"Signaling Worker Quality in a Developing Country: Lessons From a Certification Program"

Abstract

We evaluate the returns to signaling occupation-specific skills using unique administrative data from a nationwide certification program in Colombia. The program certifies skills and issues three certificates: basic, intermediate, and advanced. We use regression discontinuity methods to compare workers’ earnings around certificate-assignment thresholds. Signaling advanced occupation-specific skills yields significant returns: 9.7%, on average, within two years of certification. Instead, we find no effects from signaling basic or intermediate occupation-specific skills. Our analysis reveals that the primary mechanism behind the observed income effects associated with the advanced certificate is the ability to signal occupation-specific skills to potential employers.

Antonella Mancino es profesora asistente en el Departamento de Economía de la Wilfrid Laurier University (Canadá). Sus principales áreas de investigación incluyen la economía laboral, la economía del crimen y la educación, con un enfoque particular en grupos poblacionales desfavorecidos. Actualmente, está involucrada en varios proyectos relacionados con la crisis de los opioides, el consumo de drogas y sus consecuencias delictivas.

Viernes 27 de septiembre

Francesco Gabriele | PhD candidate, University of Southern California

"The Welfare Effects of Behavior-based Price Discrimination in E-commerce"

Abstract

E-commerce retailers have the power to price discriminate based on users’ online past purchase behavior. This paper develops a structural model of consumer demand and a pricing policy model to quantify the welfare effects of behavior-based price discrimination (BBPD). Using data from a randomized controlled experiment on a cosmetics e-commerce site, the structural estimation reveals elastic demand to price discount treatments. With nonparametric estimation via machine learning, the counterfactual analysis tests different pricing algorithms and shows that personalized price discrimination increases e-commerce profit by 24% and consumer surplus by 4%, relative to uniform pricing. Exploiting past purchase history is profitable for the monopolistic e-commerce: BBPD complements targeting discounts by generating an additional 11% gain in producer surplus without harming loyal customers. This paper contributes to the current public policy debate about pricing strategies in digital markets as the welfare analysis has implications for privacy policy.

Francesco Gabriele is a PhD candidate in Economics at University of Southern California. His research interests focus on Empirical Industrial Organization with an emphasis on Digital Economics and Quantitative Marketing. His research agenda also covers topics of behavioral and experimental economics, discrete-continuous choice models, field experiment, causal inference and machine learning.

Viernes 13 de septiembre

Mara Galmarini | CONICET

"Como vino para chocolate: estudios dinámicos con consumidores en productos novedosos"

Abstract

En este seminario se presentarán los resultados de un trabajo publicado este año en Food Research International, en el que se estudió la percepción de los consumidores de un producto novedoso desarrollado previamente por el propio equipo de investigación: chocolate enriquecido con polvo de vino tinto. También se presentará una técnica temporal de evaluación de producto: la dominancia temporal de sensaciones, que permite que los consumidores describan su percepción del producto durante todo el consumo, además de expresar su nivel de preferencia.

Mara Galmarini es licenciada en Tecnología de los Alimentos de la Universidad Católica Argentina (UCA), Doctora en Bromatología por la Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) y Marie Curie Alumni. Se desempeña en Argentina como investigadora independiente de CONICET en análisis sensorial, siendo sus líneas de trabajo las metodologías dinámicas, asociaciones de alimentos y estudios transmodales. También ha trabajado como profesora e investigadora invitada en diferentes universidades y centros de investigación internacionales. En Buenos Aires, es profesora de Ciencias Sensoriales y Comportamiento del Consumidor en las universidades de San Andrés y Torcuato Di Tella. También es parte del equipo coordinador de la Red Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sensoriales y Comportamiento del Consumidor, y se desempeña como comunicadora de ciencia en medios gráficos y audiovisuales en Argentina.

6 de septiembre

Tommaso Ferretti | Università di Pisa

"Impact Investing and Sustainable Production in Global Value Chains: Financial Upgrading of SME Suppliers"

Abstract
This study explores sustainability strategies of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing economies (DEEs), as suppliers in global value chains (GVCs). As they pursue environmental upgrading that captures value from improved sustainability performance, existing studies show financing constitutes a barrier for DEE SMEs to compete in sustainable markets. This is occurring despite growing impact investing that aims to generate positive and measurable sustainability outcomes. We examine how DEE SMEs’ integration in GVCs influences their strategies and ability to access impact investing. Based on a qualitative study on 63 SME coffee suppliers and thirteen impact investors, we show that DEE SMEs in GVCs access impact investing through a process of building financial, managerial and relational capabilities to obtain funding for improving environmental performance that we refer to as “financial upgrading”. This new concept is central to the interplay of DEE SMEs sustainability strategies and access to impact investing for environmental upgrading. Our findings advance notions of upgrading by uncovering financial upgrading intertwined with economic and environmental upgrading. Given the positioning of DEE SMEs in the GVC we show that production organization influences sustainability strategies. Our study connects two dimensions, impact investing and production organization, currently disconnected in prevailing views on sustainability and impact finance. We contribute new understanding of the link between environmental upgrading and financial resources. As well, this work contributes to literatures on sustainable finance and production in GVCs by highlighting the role of SMEs and impact investors for supply chain sustainability beyond the dominant focus on MNCs.

Tommaso Ferretti holds an LLM from Università di Pisa, an MPA from LUISS University, and completed his Ph.D. in Management at McGill University. Tommaso Ferretti’s research is situated at the nexus of international strategy, sustainability innovation, and global governance. Understanding how emerging market suppliers operating in global value chains contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals lies at the top of his research program. He is particularly interested in the study of how impact investing and public policies enable the sustainability strategies of small and medium enterprises by driving organizational learning for green product innovation and expanding participation in sustainable markets.

Viernes 30 de agosto

Elisa Belfiori | UTDT

"Unequal Climate Policy in an Unequal World"

Abstract
We study climate policy in an economy with heterogeneous households, two types of goods (clean and dirty), and a climate externality from the dirty good. Using household expenditure and emissions data, we document that low-income households have higher emissions per dollar spent than high-income households, making a carbon tax regressive. We build a model that captures this fact and study climate policies that are neutral with respect to the income distribution. A central feature of these policies is that resource transfers across consumers are ruled out. We show that the constrained optimal carbon tax in a heterogeneous economy is heterogeneous: Higher-income households face a higher rate. Our main result shows that when the planner is limited to a uniform carbon tax, the tax follows the Pigouvian rule but is lower than the unconstrained carbon tax. Finally, we embed this model into a standard incomplete markets framework to quantify the policy effects on the economy, climate and welfare, and we find a Pareto-improving result. The climate policy is welfare-improving for every consumer.

*Jointly written with Daniel Carroll and Sewon Hur.

Elisa Belfiori is a professor at the Business School of Torcuato Di Tella University. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Minnesota. Her research sits at the intersection of macroeconomics and climate change with applications in public finance. She has published her work in international journals such as the European Economic Review, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Economics of Energy and Environmental Policy, and Energy Policy. She is the co-editor and contributing author of the book The Economics of Climate Change in Argentina, published by Springer.

Viernes 16 de agosto

Giulio Buciuni | Trinity College Dublin

"Creating an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in a ''Knowledge Desert'': The Role of International Connectivity and Public Institutional Support"

Abstract

While the literature on Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (EEs) predominantly concentrates on endogenously-developed systems of entrepreneurial actors, this paper investigates the atypical emergence of EEs initiated by inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). In these more deviant cases, international connectivity and public policy initiative are rooted in the ecosystem from the outset, but their interdependence has received only limited attention to date. This gap led to our research question: how does the interplay between public institutional support and international connectivity facilitate the emergence and growth of an entrepreneurial ecosystem in a “desert of knowledge”? An empirical analysis is undertaken on the development of the Medical Technology sector in two locations where inward FDI from public policy initiative was the trigger for the genesis and subsequent growth of the sector in both regions. Despite having similar starting points, an entrepreneurial ecosystem has developed in one location, whilst the other has fallen short to date. By undertaking a comparative analysis, the main finding reveals that public institutional support must promote the local development of knowledge capabilities to absorb knowledge from abroad and transform knowledge to serve an international market through domestic new entrepreneurial firms and FDI. The evolving nature, timing and quality of public institutional support and international connectivity matters in hindering or promoting an EE from FDI.

Dr. Giulio Buciuni is an Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Trinity College Dublin and the director of the M.Sc. in Entrepreneurship, which he launched in 2017. His research interest focuses on the spatial distribution of innovation, and more specifically on the conditions enabling the genesis and growth of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EE) and the mechanisms underlying innovation development in Global Value Chains (GVC). The results of his research have been published in several leading academic journals such as Global Strategy Journal, Regional Studies, Journal of World Business and Journal of Economic Geography and have been cited by Forbes and the website of Harvard Business School.

Viernes 9 de agosto

Elena Fumagalli | INCAE Business School

"When Life Gives You Lemons, Buy Meaning: Negative Life Events Increase Spending on Eudaimonic Product Categories"

Abstract

Everyone experiences significant life events, and negative life events (NLEs) can be particularly disruptive to a person’s life. However, existing research has not addressed how relationally disruptive NLEs like divorce or death of a loved one influence consumption and spending habits. Since people derive meaning from their social connections, relationally disruptive NLEs might shift consumption behavior toward products that offer eudemonic value, reflecting a search for deeper meaning. We investigate this hypothesis in two longitudinal datasets of U.S. households’ purchase data. Using difference-in-difference models and propensity score matching, we find that households experiencing such NLEs spend more on products high in eudemonic value. The effect is robust during both ordinary (Study 1) and extraordinary times (i.e., a global pandemic: Study 2). A follow-up experiment addresses endogeneity concerns by providing a causal replication of these effects, and reveals search for meaning as the underlying mechanism, ruling out competing accounts. These findings contribute to prior literature on life events and meaning in consumption, and offer key managerial implications for category management and retail strategies.

Dr. Elena Fumagalli is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at INCAE Business School. She earned her Ph.D. in Marketing from HEC Paris, France, and a Master’s in Marketing Management from Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milan, Italy, where she graduated cum laude. Professor Fumagalli specializes in consumer well-being, particularly loneliness and technology/social media use. Her research focuses on consumer behavior, using both experimental design and survey methods to investigate how negative emotions like loneliness and disgust influence purchasing decisions. Her work has been published in various top-tier international journals, including the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Retailing, Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, Frontiers in Psychology, and Current Opinion in Psychology.

Viernes 26 de julio

Luca Henkel | Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Chicago and the University of CEMA

"Proud to Not Own Stocks: How Identity Shapes Financial Decisions"

Abstract

This paper introduces a key factor influencing households’ decision to invest in the stock market: how people view stockholders. Using surveys we conducted with nearly 8,500 individuals from eleven countries, we document that a large majority of respondents view stockholders negatively on identity-relevant characteristics – they are perceived as greedy, gambler-like, and selfish individuals. By linking survey and administrative data, we show that these negative perceptions strongly predict households’ stock market participation with a magnitude comparable to leading alternative determinants. We then provide experimental evidence that negative perceptions causally influence decision-making: if people’s views about stockholders become more positive, they become more likely to choose stock-related investments. We further provide evidence that perceptions are stereotypical as they exaggerate actual group differences, leading people to hold overly negative views of stockholders. Our findings provide a novel explanation for the puzzlingly low stock market participation rates around the world, new perspectives on the malleability of financial decision-making, and evidence for the importance of identity in economic decision-making.

Luca Henkel is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Chicago and the University of CEMA as part of the Joint Initiative for Latin American Experimental Economics. He received his Ph.D. in 2023 from the University of Bonn and will join the Erasmus School of Economics in Rotterdam as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Finance in Fall 2024. His research fields are behavioral economics and household finance. In particular, he focuses on examining the determinants and consequences of financial and moral decision-making using experiments, surveys, and linked survey-administrative data.

Viernes 5 de julio

Julia Seither |  Universidad del Rosario

"Integrating Immigrants as a Tool for Broad Development"

Abstract
International migration can contribute importantly to economic development in countries of origin and destination. The effects of migration critically depend on immigrant integration. We experimentally evaluate the impact of information provision and migrants’ aspirations on immigrant integration using a field experiment among Cape Verdean immigrants in Portugal. Providing immigrants with better information sources about integration processes promotes integration outcomes such as migration status regularization and quality of employment. It furthermore affects those left behind. Targeting migrant integration barriers reduces material remittances but improves political participation and attitudes over gender equity in the country of origin.

Julia Seither is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Universidad del Rosario. She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from the Nova School of Business and Economics in 2019 and completed her postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago and Universidad del CEMA in the Joint Initiative for Latin American Experimental Economics (JILAEE). Her research interests are at the intersection of development and behavioral economics, and, in particular, on the behavioral biases of micro-entrepreneurs, migration, and the development of social norms. Julia is currently the Executive Director of the Rosario Experimental and Behavioral Economics Lab (REBEL), the Network Director (together with Stanislao Maldonado) of LACEA-BRAIN, an External Member of NOVAFRICA, and a Researcher and Director at JILAEE.

Viernes 7 de junio

Tatiana Rosá | Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

"Schooling and Intergenerational Mobility: Consequences of Expanding Higher Education Institutions"

Abstract

Poor post-secondary education infrastructure and opportunities partly explain the low higher education rates in developing countries. This paper estimates the effect of a program that improved post-secondary education infrastructure by building many university campuses across Uruguay. Leveraging temporal and geographic variation in program implementation, we use a two-way fixed effect design and comprehensive administrative records to assess the program’s causal impact. By lowering the distance to a university campus, the program successfully increased university enrollment, particularly of less privileged students who are the first in their families to attend a university. The program impacted students from localities up to 30 kilometers from the new campus, reducing spatial inequality. Importantly, this expansion did not lower university completion rates. Furthermore, the program increased high school attendance and completion rates and the proportion of educated workers in the affected localities.

Tatiana Rosá is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She specializes in the fields of Industrial Organization and Innovation. She holds a PhD in Economics and a Master in Economics & Finance from CEMFI.

Viernes 31 de mayo

Santiago Gallino | University of Pennsylvania

"Order-Based Trade Credits and Operational Performance in the Nanostore Retail Channel"

Abstract

Millions of nanostores serve bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers in emerging markets. Their suppliers, consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, struggle with high operational costs that largely stem from shopkeepers’ liquidity constraints. We empirically investigate whether suppliers can improve operational performance by allowing nanostore shopkeepers to delay order payment by a short period of time. We term this delayed payment alternative “order-based trade credit” (OBTC) and examine the key trade-off  that suppliers face when transacting with it. While OBTC can create efficiency gains when selling and delivering products to nanostores, it is risky, as shopkeepers might default on their credit lines. We leverage data from a nanostore supplier offering OBTC to many of the nanostores it serves over an extended period of time. These data allow us to assess the effect of this novel policy on the operational performance of the supplier through a difference-in-differences approach with nearest-neighbor matching and a control function approach relying on exogenous variation isolated from two instruments. We find that OBTC leads to substantial gains for nanostore suppliers across a range of important operational drivers. Therefore, the benefits of OBTC compensate the risk that suppliers take in financing shopkeepers’ inventory under a wide range of scenarios. When examining the mechanism underlying this effect, we find that OBTC mitigates  shopkeepers’  cash shortage and leads to greater engagement with the supplier’s sales representatives. Investigating the heterogeneity in the effect, we find that nanostores receiving less product relative to others in the sample benefit the most from OBTC. Overall, we provide evidence that OBTC, an interest-free financing scheme for retail microbusinesses in emerging markets, may be economically sustainable despite the associated risks. OBTC has the potential to help narrowing down the financing gap that other schemes, such as microcredits, struggle to close as a result of their reliance on expensive interest rates and taxing requirements on  microentrepreneurs.

Santiago Gallino studies both digital transformation and store execution issues in retail. He has researched with and consulted for numerous organizations. His research has won multiple awards and has appeared in journals such as Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Operations Research, Journal of Marketing, Sloan Management Review, and Harvard Business Review. His research has been covered frequently by several media outlets.
Before joining Wharton, Professor Gallino worked at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He holds a PhD in Operations and Information Management and a Master’s in Statistics from the University of Pennsylvania where he was a Fulbright Scholar, an MBA from IAE Business School, and a degree in Electrical Engineering from Universidad de Buenos Aires.

Viernes 17 de mayo

Julio Elías | Universidad del CEMA

"Compulsory Voting, Collateral Sanctions, and Political Inequality: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment"

Abstract

Countries that compel voting often combine harsh sanctions for abstention with trivial fines to avoid punishments. Voter turnout theories based on rational self-interest suggest that these fines may undermine the collateral sanctions. We test this hypothesis using a field experiment in Buenos Aires. We randomized whether we informed eligible voters that abstention is punished by the inability to apply for government-provided services and be hired as a public employee for three years and delivered additional information that paying a 0.25 USD fine exempted the subject from these penalties. Information about sanctions increases the probability of voting by 3.4 pp relative to a control group that received no message. The effects are strongest for those who are unlikely to vote. Additional information about the symbolic fine decreases the likeli- hood of voting relative to providing the sanctions without the additional information, but the decrease is small and not statistically significant. These results suggest that collateral sanctions for abstention are an effective way to increase voter turnout and reduce voting inequality, even when the cost of avoiding the sanctions is minimal. We also compare young and old citizens who have the option to vote to show that the legal obligation to vote substantially increases turnout. Combining the results from the field experiment and the comparison analysis of young and old citizens suggests that compulsory voting laws serve an expressive function. 

Julio Elías es profesor en el Departamento de Economía y en la Escuela de Negocios de la Universidad del CEMA (UCEMA). También es Director Ejecutivo del Centro de Economía de la Creatividad UCEMA, e investigador asociado del Center of Excellence on Human Capital and Economic Growth and Development de la Universidad de Búfalo. Sus trabajos de investigación recientes se han concentrado en la economía de los trasplantes de órganos. Fue Visiting Fellow del Becker Friedman Institute de la Universidad de Chicago, y profesor visitante en el Departamento de Economía de la Universidad de Western Ontario, Canadá. También fue profesor en el Departamento de Economía de la Universidad de Búfalo durante el período 2005-2008 y profesor visitante de la misma institución en 2014. Obtuvo el Doctorado en Economía en la Universidad de Chicago y la Licenciatura en Economía en la Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.

Viernes 3 de mayo

Guillermo Solovey | Universidad de Buenos Aires

"Incorporating Cultural Context into Safe-Water Interventions: Experimental Evidence from Egypt"

Abstract

La preocupación por la desinformación se basa, en gran medida, por el impacto negativo que tiene sobre las decisiones de las personas. En este seminario voy a contar un trabajo reciente en el que evaluamos el rol de dos factores que facilitan la creencia en desinformación. Uno de ellos es la propensión a pensar rápido, sin reflexionar lo suficiente sobre el contenido. El otro factor es el partidismo, la tendencia a creer que la información que se alinea con nuestra forma de ver el mundo es correcta. Apoyándonos en un modelo de toma de decisiones y estadística bayesiana, diseñamos un experimento para probar cuatro hipótesis sobre los factores asociados con la probabilidad de creer afirmaciones de políticos de Argentina. Nuestro trabajo, además de contribuir a entender un poco mejor este fenómeno, amplía la evidencia existente del área dado que la mayoría de los estudios se focalizan en el caso de Estados Unidos y Europa.

Guillermo Solovey es doctor en Física por la Universidad de Buenos Aires, realizó estancias posdoctorales en la Universidad de Columbia y en The Rockefeller University, en las cuales se especializó en neurociencia computacional, ciencias cognitivas y del comportamiento. Actualmente es profesor de la Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales de la UBA e investigador del CONICET en el Instituto de Cálculo, del cual también es vicedirector. Dicta materias de grado y posgrado en el área de Estadística y Ciencia de Datos, y con su grupo de trabajo realiza experimentos y modelos computacionales para entender el proceso de toma de decisiones humanas, el rol de la incertidumbre y la metacognición.

Viernes 19 de abril

Martín Rossi | UdeSA

"Incorporating Cultural Context into Safe-Water Interventions: Experimental Evidence from Egypt"

Abstract

Adoption rates of safe drinking water are low in developing countries. In regions where centralized water treatment infrastructure is absent, the conventional policy response is to enhance access to safe water via point-of-use chlorination. Previous research, however, reports a ceiling in adoption rates of chlorinated water at 50 percent, even when chlorine is provided for free. We report experimental evidence that a cultural-friendly technology, which provides filtered water that resembles local traditional water, leads to higher adoption rates and willingness to pay than usual chlorinated water provision. We document adoption rates of 91 percent for filtered water, 42 percentage points higher than for chlorinated water. Willingness to pay is 61 percent higher for filtered water compared to chlorinated water. Ancillary experiments indicate that taste significantly influences the way individuals perceive the healthiness of water. According to our findings, policymakers should redirect their efforts away from the current mainstream approach of subsidized chlorine and instead explore alternative strategies that consider local communities’ culture and preferences.

Martín Antonio Rossi is Professor of Economics at Universidad de San Andres. He received his PhD in Economics from University of Oxford. His research focuses on the intersection between development economics, political economy, and public economics, and it has been published in leading academic journals such as Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, American Economic Review: Insights, Economic Journal, Review of Economics and Statistics, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Journal of Public Economics, and Journal of Development Economics. He is research affiliate for J-PAL, and his professional activities include works for UNICEF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank.

Lunes 25 de marzo

Javier Marenco | UTDT

"Aplicando técnicas de optimización combinatoria para programar los horarios de clases en la UTDT"

Abstract

Todos los semestres la Universidad lleva a cabo el proceso de planificación académica, que consiste en determinar el horario y el aula para cada clase de cada sección de cada curso, y programar la preinscripción automática de los estudiantes ingresantes. Se trata de un procedimiento que involucra a muchas personas y que es cada vez más difícil de realizar de forma manual, en un contexto en el que la Universidad está creciendo sostenidamente. En esta charla, presentaremos un proyecto que involucra la implementación de herramientas informáticas para asistir al Departamento de Registro de Alumnos al momento de realizar esta tarea. Describiremos el desarrollo de modelos de programación matemática para el diseño de los horarios, la asignación de aulas y la preinscripción de los estudiantes ingresantes, el resultado de la prueba piloto realizada para el semestre en curso, y las acciones que actualmente se están llevando a cabo para implementar esta herramienta.

Javier Marenco es profesor e investigador en Ciencias de la Computación, especializado en temas de optimización combinatoria. Se desempeña como profesor investigador asociado en UTDT. Sus áreas de interés incluyen temas de programación lineal entera, combinatoria poliedral y aplicaciones de investigación operativa. Completó su doctorado en Ciencias de la Computación y su licenciatura en Ciencias de la Computación en la Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales de la UBA.