Title: The Value of Ratings: Evidence from their Introduction in Securities Markets (Asaf Bernstein, Carola Frydman & Eric Hilt)

 Abstract: We study the effects of the first-ever ratings for corporate securities. In 1909, John Moody published a book that partitioned the majority of listed railroad bonds into letter-graded ratings based on his assessments of their credit risk. These ratings had no regulatory implications and were largely explainable using publicly available information. Despite this, we find that lower than market-implied ratings caused a rise in secondary market bond yields. Using an instrumental-variables design, we show that bonds that were rated experienced a substantial decline in their bid-ask spreads, which is consistent with reduced information asymmetries and improved liquidity. Our findings suggest that ratings can improve information transmission, even in settings with the highest monetary stakes, and highlight their potential value for the functioning of financial markets.

Title: Higher Order Moments for Differential Measurement Error, with Application to Tobin's q and Corporate Investment (co-authored with Daniel Kim) 

Here’s a link to the paper .

Title: Recruitment Efforts and the Labor Market Consequences of College Expansion.

Title: Financialization & Credit-Debt Reproduction Mechanism

Title: Organizing a Kingdom (with Charles Angelucci and Simone Meraglia)

Abstract: We develop a framework that examines the organizational challenges faced by central rulers governing large territories, where administrative power needs to be delegated to local elites. We describe how economic change can motivate rulers to empower different elites and emphasize the interaction between local and nationwide institutions. We show that rising economic potential of towns leads to local administrative power (self-governance) of urban elites. As a result, the ruler summons them to central assemblies in order to ensure effective communication and coordination between self-governing towns and the rest of the realm. This framework can explain the emergence of municipal autonomy and towns’ representation in early modern European parliaments -- a blueprint for Western Europe’s institutional framework that promoted state-formation and economic growth in the centuries to follow. We provide empirical evidence for our core mechanisms and discuss how the model applies to other historical dynamics, and to alternative organizational settings.

Title: Multidimensional Screening with Returns (joint with Alexander Haberman and Frank Yang)

Title: Political Trenches: War, Partisanship, and Polarization (with Pauline Grosjean, Michael Vlassopoulos and Yves Zenou)

Abstract: We show how local segregation and exposure to partisans affect political behavior and polarization, and contribute to critical ideological realignment. We exploit large-scale, exogenous and high-stakes peer assignment due to universal conscription of soldiers assigned from each of 34,947 French municipalities to infantry regiments during WWI. Soldiers from poor, rural municipalities, where the redistributive message of socialism had yet to penetrate, vote more for the left after the war when exposed to left-wing partisans within their regiment, even while neighboring municipalities assigned to right-wing partisans become inoculated against the left. We provide evidence that these differences reflect the combination of persuasive information and material incentives rather than pure conformity. These differences further lead to the emergence of sharp and enduring post-war discontinuities across regimental boundaries that are reflected, not only in divergent voting patterns, but also in violent civil conflicts between Collaborators and the Resistance during WWII.

Title: Deep Learning to play games.

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Title: Enhancing Learning Through Group Work: Challenges and Strategies

Abstract: Group work is a powerful pedagogical tool that promotes active learning, collaboration, and critical thinking skills among students. This seminar explores some effective strategies for implementing group work in educational settings along with the challenges associated with integrating group work into formative and summative assessments.

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Edoardo Badiiwill discuss "The effect of minimum wages on low-paid jobs" (for information, this is a good example of a stacked DiD approach) by Cengiz et al (2019), published in QJE (https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/134/3/1405/5484905) (supervisor: Nikhil Datta)

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Title: Homeward Bound: How Migrants Seek Out Familiar Climates (with Marguerite Obolensky, Charles A Taylor)..

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