Organizations & Markets

Using rich administrative and household survey data, we document a series of new facts on earnings inequality and dynamics in a developing country with a large informal sector: Brazil. Since the mid-1990s, both inequality and volatility of earnings have declined significantly in Brazil's formal sector. Higher-order moments of the distribution of earnings innovations show cyclical movements in Brazil that are similar to those in developed countries like the US. Earnings mobility is comparatively high, especially at the bottom of the distribution.

This paper studies earnings inequality and dynamics in Argentina between 1996 and 2015. Following the 2001-2002 crisis, the Argentine economy transitioned from a low- to a high-inflation regime. At the same time, the number of collective bargaining agreements increased and the minimum wage adjustments became more frequent. We document that this macroeconomic transition was associated with a persistent decrease in the dispersion of real earnings and cyclical movements in higher-order moments of the distribution of earnings innovations.

Using high-frequency transaction-level income, spending, balances, and credit limits data from an online financial service, we show that many consumers fail to stick to their self-set debt paydown plans and argue that this behavior is best explained by a model of present bias. Theoretically, we show that (i) a present-biased agent's sensitivity of consumption spending to paycheck receipt reflects his or her short-run impatience and that (ii) this sensitivity varies with available resources only for agents who are aware (sophisticated) rather than unaware (naive) of their future impatience.

Western stakeholders are increasingly demanding that multinationals sourcing from developing countries be accountable for working conditions upstream in their supply chains. In response, many multinationals privately enforce labor standards in these countries, but the effects of their interventions on local firms and workers are unknown. I partnered with 29 multinational retail and apparel firms to enforce local labor laws on their suppliers in Bangladesh. I implemented a field experiment with 84 garment factories, randomly enforcing a mandate for safety committees.

Along with its interrelated companion volume, The Content, Impact, and Regulation of Streaming Video, this book covers the next generation of TV—streaming online video, with details about its present and a broad perspective on the future. It reviews the new technical elements that are emerging, both in hardware and software, their long-term trend, and the implications. It discusses the emerging ‘media cloud’ of video and infrastructure platforms, and the organizational form of such TV.

Is firm behavior mainly driven by its environment or rather by the characteristics of its managers? We develop a cognitive theory of manager fixed effects, where the allocation of managerial attention determines firm behavior. We show that in complex environments, the endogenous allocation of attention exacerbates manager fixed effects. Small differences in managerial expertise then may result in dramatically different firm behavior, as managers devote scarce attention in a way which amplifies initial differences.

Economic theory suggests that leaders may play key roles in enabling social movements to overcome collective action problems through a variety of distinct mechanisms. Empirical tests of these theories outside the lab are scarce due to both measurement and identification challenges. We conduct multiple field experiments to test theories of leadership in the context of Myanmar's burgeoning labor union movement. We collaborate with a confederation of labor unions as it mobilizes garment workers in the run-up to a national minimum wage negotiation. We present three sets of results.

Along with its interrelated companion volume, The Technology, Business, and Economics of Streaming Video, this book examines the next generation of TV—online video. It reviews the elements that lead to online platforms and video clouds and analyzes the software and hardware elements of content creation and interaction, and how these elements lead to different styles of video content.