The Chazen Institute features a snapshot of new research being conducted by Chazen Senior Scholars and its implications for global business. Links open into PDFs.
How Leaders Can Spark Social Change
June 2024 — Chazen Senior Scholar Laura Boudreau presents the first experimental evidence of the roles union leaders play when it comes to consensus building and mobilization among workers.
Monitoring Harassment in Organizations
November 2023 — Chazen Senior Scholar Laura Boudreau examines different methodologies for encouraging employees to report harassment. She finds that a combination of methods works best.
Incorporating Heat Risk into Asset Pricing
November 2022 — New research from Chazen Senior Scholar Suresh Sundaresan shows that the increasing frequency of heat waves proves to be the most significant economic cost affecting asset prices and the cost of borrowing.
Sharing Possessions in a Global Pandemic
August 2022 — In “Cross-Cultural Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Willingness to Share Possessions,” Chazen Senior Scholar Gita Johar and Columbia Business School PhD candidate Maayan Malter show that the degree to which consumers were willing to share their possessions with others during the pandemic depended on where they lived.
The Power of Procurement Officers
February 2022 — In “The Allocation of Authority in Organizations: A Field Experiment with Bureaucrats,” Chazen Senior Scholar Andrea Prat and co-authors from Columbia University and the London School of Economics show that giving frontline officers more leeway, not more oversight, in the procurement process could save governments significant time and money.
What Happens When CSR Is Mandated?
January 2022 — In “Does Mandated Corporate Social Responsibility Crowd Out Voluntary Corporate Social Responsibility?” Chazen Senior Scholar Shivaram Rajgopal and Indian School of Business Professor Prasanna Tantri find that the move from a voluntary activity to a compliance exercise has had an unintended effect on corporate philanthropy in India.
How Selfies Can Drive Brand Engagement
November 2021 — In “The Power of Brand Selfies in Consumer-Generated Brand Images,” Chazen Senior Scholar Oded Netzer and colleagues from the University of Hamburg show that brands derive the most value, in terms of social media engagement and expressed purchase intent, when consumers take a photo of a branded product from their point of view as opposed to the traditional selfie where consumers pose with a product.
The Case for Paying People to Get Vaccinated
October 2021 — In “Monetary Incentives Increase COVID-19 Vaccinations,” Chazen Senior Scholar Stephan Meier and colleagues show that paying people to get vaccinated actually works. Studying population-wide data from Sweden, researchers reveal that a modest monetary incentive moves the needle on vaccination rates, regardless of a person’s background.
The Unintended Consequences of Basel III
September 2021 — In “Risk Migration from the Banking Industry to the Real Economy: An Examination of Spillover from Basel III,” Columbia Business School PhD graduate Jing Wen investigates the effects of Basel III and reveals that it has inadvertently led to increased risk-taking by borrowers and poses a growing threat to the global economy. This paper received a 2020 Chazen Institute Doctoral Grant.
The Race to Innovate
May 2021 — In “Mapping US-China Technology Decoupling, Innovation and Firm Performance,” Chazen Senior Scholar Wei Jiang and colleagues from Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business show that China has benefited from its integration with the developed world, especially the US, and decoupling has created a barrier to innovation for Chinese companies.
When Corporations Issue Debt
April 2021 — In “The Corporate Supply of (Quasi) Safe Assets,” Columbia Business School PhD candidate Lira Mota examines the rise of corporate debt issuance and how it affects investors and issuing corporations alike. This paper received a 2020 Chazen Institute Doctoral Grant.
The Path to Decarbonizing Energy
November 2020 — In “Economic Aspects of the Energy Transition,” Geoffrey Heal, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, outlines three major barriers to the decarbonization of electric power generation on a global scale: the overall price tag, tax policy, and the cost to consumers.
How Meaning at Work Impacts the Gender Pay Gap
October 2020 — In “Gender Differences in Preferences for Meaning at Work,” Stephan Meier, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, and his Columbia Business School colleagues Vanessa Burbano and Nicolas Padilla reveal there is a universal difference in how women choose jobs; this difference centers on how much meaning their work provides.
Subsidizing China’s Lead of the Global Marketplace
September 2020 — In “A Race to Lead: How Chinese Government Interventions Shape the US-China Production Competition,” Wei Jiang, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, and co-authors from Texas A&M and Boston College’s Carroll School of Management find that China production increasingly displaces US production and employment in industries coveted by US firms.
Selling Government Bonds: Why Auction Format Matters
September 2020 — In “Underwriting Government Debt Auctions: Auction Choice and Information Production,” Suresh Sundaresan, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, and co-authors from Fordham University and New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business examine a novel, two-stage process for selling government securities.
The Globalization of Entrepreneurship
June 2020 — In “When do return migrants become entrepreneurs? The role of global social networks and institutional distance,” Dan Wang, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, finds that cross-border social networks — connections to individuals outside one's home country — are vital for people looking to start a new venture, particularly if they worked abroad before returning to their home country.
Unbundling of Analyst Research
May 2020 — In “Should Information Be Sold Separately? Evidence from MiFID II,” Columbia Business School PhD candidates Yifeng Guo and Lira Mota investigate the impact of unbundling on sell-side research. What they find is that, under the new regulation, the quality of analyst forecasts decreases but the quality improves as a result of increased competition among research analysts.
The Power of Knowledge: How Academic Research Informs Public Policy Decisions
February 2020 — In “How Research Affects Policy: Experimental Evidence from 2,150 Brazilian Municipalities,” Jonas Hjort, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School; Diana Moreira, assistant professor at UC Davis; Gautam Rao, associate professor at Harvard University; and Juan Francisco Santini, postdoctoral research fellow at Innovations for Poverty Action, suggest that providing research findings to political leaders in an accessible and informative way can lead to significant policy change.
A Critical Player in Improving Workplace Safety
January 2020 — In the paper “Multinational Enforcement of Labor Law: Experimental Evidence From Bangladesh’s Apparel Sector,” Laura Boudreau, postdoctoral fellow at the Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business, examines a group of multinational buyers’ efforts to hold their suppliers to higher labor standards – and finds that specific interventions improved workplace safety with no detectible sacrifice in terms of overall factory efficiency.
The Startup Pay Premium
December 2019 — In the paper “Pay, Employment, and Dynamics of Young Firms,” Christian Moser, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, and his co-authors show that who gets hired at a startup and how much they get paid has long-term implications for the financial health of the firm.
When a Proxy Fight Ends in a Settlement
August 2019 — In the paper “Dancing with Activists,” Wei Jiang, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, and her co-authors analyze the drivers, nature, and consequences of settlement agreements — and shed light on how activist shareholders bring about change in corporations.
The Effect of CEO Communication Styles on Firm Performance
June 2019 — In the paper “Machine Learning Approaches to Facial and Text Analysis: Discovering CEO Oral Communication Styles,” Dan Wang, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, and his co-authors identify unique CEO communication styles and decipher how these different styles influence CEO decision-making and the ability of their businesses to grow and change.
The Real Cost of Trump’s Trade Wars
March 2019 — In the paper “The Return to Protectionism,” Amit Khandelwal, Director of the Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business, and his co-authors document the short-term impacts of the trade war, including the steep price paid by U.S. consumers and producers, particularly those in heavily Republican counties.
The Case for Tenure Voting
March 2019 — In the paper “Will Tenure Voting Give Corporate Managers Lifetime Tenure?,” Wei Jiang, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, and her co-authors examine two types of stock voting structures (dual-class and tenure) and posit that tenure voting helps promote greater balance between managerial control and shareholder rights.
The Marketplace for Consumer Attention
February 2019 — In the paper “Attention Oligopoly,” Andrea Prat, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, and his co-author find the legality of online mergers, such as the one between Facebook and Instagram, are evaluated based on price-based competition models that, in the marketplace for consumer attention, do not apply.
The Reluctance of Homeowners to Refinance
February 2019 — In the paper “What’s the Catch? Suspicion of Bank Motives and Sluggish Refinancing,” Stephan Meier, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, and his Columbia Business School colleagues Eric Johnson and Olivier Toubia investigate why U.S. homeowners are slow to consider refinancing options even when the terms could save them significant money, and what factors influence their decision not to refinance.
The Art of Fame
January 2019 — In the paper “Fame as an Illusion of Creativity: Evidence from the Pioneers of Abstract Art,” Paul Ingram, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, and his co-author examine the link between fame, creativity, and social networks.
The Power of Peers in Saving Money
December 2018 — In the paper “Saving More in Groups: Field Experimental Evidence from Chile,” Stephan Meier, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, and his co-authors test the effectiveness of peer feedback in helping people achieve their savings goals.
The Value of Satellite Imagery in Mapping Urban Markets
November 2018 — In the paper “Detecting Urban Markets with Satellite Imagery,” Amit Khandelwal, Director of the Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business, and his co-authors explore the emergence of satellite imagery as an increasingly valuable source for defining urban markets based on economic activity.
The Effects of Trading with China: A Net Positive for U.S. Workers
October 2018 — In the paper “Re-Examining the Effects of Trading with China on Local Labor Markets: A Supply Chain Perspective,” Shang-Jin Wei, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, and his co-authors examine the direct and indirect effects of trading with China — and find that the net effect is not only positive for U.S. job growth, but also wage growth.
The Downside of Deposit Insurance
October 2018 — In “The Spread of Deposit Insurance and the Global Rise in Bank Asset Risk Since the 1970s,” Charles Calomiris, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, and his co-author track the expansion of deposit insurance generosity — and show that its steady rise has increased asset risk in banking systems by freeing banks from the constraints of market discipline.
The Optimal State of Monetary Unions
September 2018 — In “Money, Sovereignty, and Optimal Currency Areas,” Patrick Bolton, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, and his co-author examine the costs of joining a monetary union and propose a pathway forward that would help member countries like those in the European Union avoid debt defaults.
The Rise of Activist Arbitrage
September 2018 — In “Activist Arbitrage in M&A Acquirers,” Wei Jiang, Chazen Senior Scholar at Columbia Business School, and her co-authors study a new phenomenon in shareholder activism and provide evidence on how it affects target firms and activists returns.