Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2025); vol. 238, 107231
Previously Agents and Gender Gaps in Negotiation
Abstract: Oftentimes people delegate negotiation to others (i.e., “agents’’) , whether formally or informally. This paper explores the impact of agents on gender differences in negotiation and how this varies with common incentive structures. Using a bargaining experiment with over 2,400 subjects, we find that, absent agents, males make more aggressive demands than females. Introducing agents who negotiate on behalf of the players entirely closes this gap. Although agent incentives affect overall aggressiveness, they do not induce gender gaps. Belief elicitations suggest that this is because agents underestimate reservation prices for both males and females and incorrectly believe that they have the same threshold for rewarding aggressive behavior. While males and females have similar expected outcomes, agents close a risk exposure gap by making proposals across genders that are equally likely to be accepted.
Household Mobility, Networks, and Gentrification of Minority Neighborhoods in the US, with Fernando Ferreira and Benjamin Smith
Journal of Labor Economics (2024); vol. 42, issue S1, pp. S61-S94.
Abstract: We investigate the impact of recent gentrification shocks on minority neighborhoods in the 50 largest US labor markets. We show that household moves from a given neighborhood are concentrated to few destinations with similar minority shares and strong network ties, but those neighborhoods are farther away from downtown. Gentrification affects Black neighborhoods by raising house prices, reducing the proportion of Black households, and increasing the share of movers going to neighborhoods with network ties. However, gentrification has negligible effects on Hispanic neighborhoods. Overall labor market area segregation decreases after a gentrification shock because highly Black neighborhoods become less segregated.
Real Estate Economics (2021); vol. 94, issue S1, pp. 134-168.
Abstract: Home appraisals are produced for millions of residential mortgage transactions each year. In addition to preventing fraudulent transactions, an important benefit of appraisals when they report a value below the contract price is that they help borrowers renegotiate prices with sellers. However, appraised values are rarely below the purchase contract price: Some 30% of appraisals in our sample are exactly at the home price (with less than 10% of them below it). We construct a simple but intuitive model to explain how appraisers’ incentives within the institutional framework that governs mortgage lending lead to information loss in appraisals (i.e., appraisals set equal to the contract price). We also present new empirical findings relevant to the issue of appraisal accuracy, based on analysis of appraisal and contract price data and analysis of mortgage default patterns. One new finding—that the frequency of appraisal equal to contract price increases at the loan-to-value boundaries (notches) typical of mortgage pricing schedules—is, in fact, implied by our model. In addition, consistent with information loss or, more broadly, with the view that appraisals often artificially confirm the contract price, we find that mortgages with appraised value equal to the contract price are more likely to default.
Previously Market Concentration, Labor Quality, and Efficiency: Evidence from Barriers in the Real Estate Industry
Link to most recent version; Link to SSRN
Abstract: Policies that restrict entry into labor markets are often announced in advance, yet little is known about how anticipatory responses to these announcements shape long-run outcomes. This paper studies such dynamics in the U.S. real estate industry by estimating both short- and long-run effects of the announcement of a 2012 Texas broker licensing reform. Using a novel dataset of U.S. real estate licensees, I document a 60% increase in broker entry following the announcement which partially offsets the reform’s intended long-run deterrent effect, raising the broker stock by about 7%. Using this quasi-exogenous increase to the size of broker labor markets, I show that having more brokers does not increase transaction volume or salesperson entry but is associated with longer market durations, suggesting reduced market efficiency. Moreover, stricter licensing fails to improve labor quality: brokers induced by the announcement outperform those licensed under the stricter regime. These findings highlight the importance of anticipatory behavior in evaluating entry barrier policy.
Abstract: This paper examines how collective bargaining laws for public employees influence the composition of state and local pension plans in the United States. I compile the most comprehensive database to date on collective bargaining laws across all fifty states and link it to both historical (1957–2022) and contemporary (1987–2022) Census data on pensions. Exploiting variation in the passage of collective bargaining laws across time, state, and employee groups, I document that pension inputs (government contributions, employee contributions, and benefit payments) are largely explained by state and time. Still, there is significant heterogeneity across plan administration level and occupation. Results show that local police and combined police-fire plans receive higher government contributions, while collective bargaining laws have limited direct effects on pension financing.