We use a simple theoretical framework and a randomized manipulation of access to information on peers' wages to provide new evidence on the effects of relative pay on individual job satisfaction and job search intentions. A randomly chosen subset of employees of the University of California (UC)...

We investigate how and why the productivity of a worker varies as a function of the productivity of her co-workers in a group production process. In theory, the introduction of a high productivity worker could lower the effort of incumbent workers because of free riding; or it could increase the...

We provide new evidence on the effect of the unemployment insurance (UI) weekly benefit amount on unemployment insurance spells based on administrative data from the state of Missouri covering the period 2003-2013. Identification comes from a regression kink design that exploits the...

In a classic paper, Schelling (1971) showed that extreme segregation can arise from social interactions in white preferences: once the minority share in a neighborhood exceeds a critical "tipping point," all the whites leave. We use regression discontinuity methods and Census tract data from...

A great deal of urban policy depends on the possibility of creating stable, economically and racially mixed neighborhoods. Many social interaction models - including the seminal Schelling (1971) model -- have the feature that the only stable equilibria are fully segregated. These models suggest...

Supporters of touch-screen voting claim it is a highly reliable voting technology, while a growing number of critics argue that paperless electronic voting systems are vulnerable to fraud. In this paper we use county-level data on voting technologies in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections...

We study the effect of disclosing information on peers' salaries on workers' job satisfaction and job search intentions. A randomly chosen subset of University of California employees was informed about a new website listing the pay of University employees. All employees were then surveyed about...