Research, Media Impact, and Awards: Fall 2022
This sampling of recent faculty activity at the Boston College Carroll School of Management includes papers published in leading peer-reviewed journals. Among them:听The听Journal of Finance,听The Review of Financial Studies,听Journal of Financial Economics,听Journal of Accounting Research,听Journal of Accounting and Economics,听Management Science,听Academy of Management Journal,听Journal of Marketing,听Operations Research,听Journal of Management Information Systems,听and others. Also included in this roundup are recent media spotlights on Carroll School faculty research as well as awards and other distinctions.
Pierluigi Balduzzi
Professor, Finance
Journal of Financial Econometrics
"Anatomy of a Sovereign Debt Crisis: Machine Learning, Real-Time Macro Fundamentals, and CDS Spreads"
Co-authors:
听Roberto Savona, University of Brescia
听Lucia Alessi, team leader at European Comission Joint Research Centre
"We employ a Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO)-based extension of the Fama鈥揗acBeth procedure to characterize the time-varying dependence of sovereign Credit Default Swap (CDS) spreads on macro indicators during the samples 2009鈥�2013 and 2013鈥�2020."
Curtis Chan
Assistant Professor, Management and Organization
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
"Heroes From Above But Not (Always) From Within? Gig Workers鈥� Reactions to the Sudden Public Moralization of their Work."
Co-authors:
听Lindsey D. Cameron, University of Pennsylvania
听Michel Anteby, Boston University
"Our study contributes to literatures on the moralization of work and narratives by explaining why some workers accept a moralized narrative and others reject or wrestle with it, documenting consequences of workers鈥� reactions to such narratives, and suggesting how a moralized public narrative can backfire."
Nathan Dong
Assistant Professor of the Practice, Finance
The Review of Corporate Finance Studies
"Determinants of LGBTQ+ Corporate Policies"
Co-authors:
听Tanja Artiga Gonzalez, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
听Paul Calluzzo, Queen's University
听 Georg D. Granic, Erasmus University Rotterdam
"This divisive nature of the societal debate around LGBTQ+ rights can be used to inform us about the circumstances under which firms are more likely to adopt LGBTQ+ friendly firm policies."
Samuel Hartzmark
Professor, Finance
Hillenbrand Family Faculty Fellow
The Journal of Finance
"A New Test of Risk Factor Relevance"
Co-authors:
听Alex Chinco, Baruch College
听Abigail Sussman, University of Chicago
"Textbook models assume that investors try to insure against bad states of the world associated with specific risk factors when investing. This is a testable assumption and we develop a survey framework for doing so."
Nan Liu
Associate Professor, Business Analytics
William S. McKiernan Family Faculty Fellow
Operations Research
"Dynamic Interday and Intraday Scheduling"
Co-authors:
听Christos Zacharias, University of Miami
听 Mehmet A. Begen, Western听University
"Grounded on our theory, we develop a practically implementable and computationally tractable scheduling paradigm with performance guarantees."
Alicia Munnell
Peter F. Drucker Chair in Management Sciences
Director of the Center for Retirement Research
Center for Retirement Research at Boston College
"How to Think About Recent Trends in the Average Retirement Age?"
"After a century of decline, work activity among older men stabilized in the 1980s and began to rise in the 1990s. This turnaround reflected changes in Social Security, retirement plans, the nature of work, education levels, and health coverage. In response, the average retirement age for men has risen by about three years. Interestingly, though, both labor force participation and the average retirement age remain below their levels in the 1960s."
Center for Retirement Research at Boston College
1. ""
"The 2022 Trustees Report has no real news about Social Security鈥檚 overall future. Interestingly, a lower assumed disability incidence rate allows the DI trust fund to pay full benefits for the next 75 years."
2. ""
"The workers who lose out are those who leave in mid-career, as their pensions are based on wages when they depart, whose real value erodes over time. This new study finds that this group accounts for about 17 percent of current noncovered workers, so hundreds of thousands could fall short."
Co-authors:
听Jean-Pierre Aubry, Laura D. Quinby, and Glenn Springstead
3. ""
"When kids leave home, parents consume less but they don鈥檛 save more. So where is the money going?"
Co-authors:
听Andrew G. Biggs and Anqi Chen
4. ""
"Thus, policymakers should give Medicare some negotiating authority to ensure that much-needed drugs don鈥檛 bankrupt either Medicare or individuals."
Co-authors:听
听Patrick Hubbard
5: "" (Working Paper)
"While only a fraction of noncovered workers are at risk of falling short, the problem is still serious. Social Security is intended to provide a minimum level of retirement income for all Americans.听 Thus, learning that between 750 thousand to 1 million noncovered workers annually could ultimately be at risk of not receiving that minimum 颅is concerning."
Co-authors:
听Jean-Pierre Aubry, Siyan Liu, Laura D. Quinby, and Glenn Springstead
Michael Pratt
Professor, Management and Organization
O'Connor Family Professor
Academy of Management Journal (forthcoming)
"How Organizations Influence Interpersonal Trust Repair: The Case of a French Antiterrorist Unit"
Co-author:
听Gabriel R. Sala, Northeastern University
"Through an inductive qualitative study of a French anti-terrorist unit, we move beyond dyadic treatments of interpersonal trust repair to theorize a model that elucidates the organizational practices that can be used to guide members through the trust repair process."
Jonathan Reuter
Associate Professor, Finance
AEA Papers and Proceedings
"Do State-Sponsored Retirement Plans Boost Retirement Saving?"
Co-authors:
听John Chalmers, University of Oregon
听Olivia Mitchell, University of Pennsylvania
听听Mingli Zhong, research associate at the Urban Institute
"Oregon recently launched an automatic-enrollment retirement savings program for private sector workers lacking access to other workplace retirement plans. [...] Overall, we conclude that OregonSaves has meaningfully increased employee savings by reducing search costs."
Kathleen Seiders and Gergana Nenkov
Professor and Chairperson, Marketing; Wargo Family Faculty Fellow (Seiders)
Associate Professor, Marketing (Nenkov)
Journal of Marketing
"How Industries Use Direct-to-Public Persuasion in Policy Conflicts: Asymmetries in Public Voting Responses"
Co-author:
听Andrea Godfrey Flynn, University of San Diego
"This research introduces a theoretically derived and empirically supported framework that draws from multiple areas, including marketing persuasion, political campaign strategy, sociopolitical legitimacy, and perceptual fit, to identify important differences in the effectiveness of these persuasion strategies on attitudes and voting behavior."
Tuomas Tomunen
Assistant Professor, Finance
Centre for Economic Policy Research (discussion paper)
"Is Physical Climate Risk Priced? Evidence from Regional Variation in Exposure to Heat Stress"
Co-authors:
听Viral V. Acharya, New York University
听Timothy C. Johnson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
听听Suresh M. Sundaresan, Columbia University
"We exploit regional variations in exposure to heat stress to study if physical climate risk is priced in municipal and corporate bonds as well as in equity markets."
Hanyi (Livia) Yi
Assistant Professor, Finance
Journal of Financial Economics
"Launching with a Parachute: The Gig Economy and New Business Formation"
Co-authors:
听John M. Barrios, Washington University in St. Louis
听Yael V. Hochberg, Rice University
"Our findings suggest that the introduction of the gig economy creates fallback opportunities for would-be entrepreneurs that reduce risk and encourage new business formation."
Journal of Public Economics, 2022
"Aging and Public Financing Costs: Evidence from U.S. Municipal Bond Markets" (Lead Article)
Co-author:
听Alexander W. Butler, Rice University
"We examine the impact of population aging on municipal access to credit...Our findings highlight the challenges municipalities face to cope with systemic demographic transition."
Mary Ellen Carter
Professor, Accounting
Joseph L. Sweeney Chair
Strategic Finance Magazine
"COVID-Related Pay Cuts for CEOs"
Co-authors:
听Luann J. Lynch, University of Virginia
听Xiaoxia Peng, University of Utah
"New research examines the potential factors and motivations that led companies to reduce CEO compensation during the pandemic."
Thomas Chemmanur
Professor, Finance
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice
"Top Management Team Quality and Innovation in Venture-Backed Private Firms and IPO Market Rewards to Innovative Activity"
Co-authors:
听Manish Gupta, University of Nottingham
听Kar茅n Simonyan, Suffolk University
"We hypothesize that firms with higher quality top management teams invest more in innovative projects and select better projects, yielding higher innovation productivity; pursue explorative rather than exploitative innovation strategies; and hire more high quality inventors."
Vyacheslav (Slava) Fos
Professor, Finance
Hillenbrand Family Faculty Fellow
The Review of Financial Studies
"Tuition, Debt, and Human Capital"
Co-authors:
听Rajashri Chakrabarti, head of equitable growth studies at Federal Reserve Bank of New York
听Andres Liberman, chief information officer at Betterfly
听Constantine Yannelis, University of Chicago
"This paper investigates the effects of college tuition on student debt and human capital accumulation."
Miao Liu
Assistant Professor, Accounting
Journal of Accounting Research
"Assessing Human Information Processing in Lending Decisions: A Machine Learning Approach"
"I show that a machine learning model substantially outperforms loan officers in processing hard information. Loan officers can only process a sparse set of useful hard information identified by the machine learning model and focus their attention on salient signals such as large jumps in cash flows. However, the loan officers use salient hard information as 鈥渞ed flags鈥� to highlight where to acquire more soft information. This result suggests that salient information is an attention allocation device: It guides humans to allocate their limited cognitive resources to acquire soft information, a task in which humans have an advantage over machines."
Dmitry Mitrofanov
Assistant Professor, Business Analytics
Harvard Business Review
"Why You Should Warn Customers When You鈥檙e Running Low on Stock"
Co-author:
听Benjamin Knight, senior data scientist at Instacart
"Customers respond better if they鈥檙e warned there鈥檚 a chance an item is out of stock than if they find out after ordering. These experimental results suggest that, as with so many things, honesty is the best policy."
Hristina Nikolova and Gergana Nenkov
Assistant Professor, Marketing and The Diane Harkins Coughlin and Christopher J. Coughlin Sesquicentennial Assistant Professor (Nikolova)
Associate Professor, Marketing (Nenkov)
Journal of Marketing Research
"I Will Be Green for Us: When Consumers Compensate for Their Partners鈥� Unsustainable Behavior"
Co-author:
听Aylin Cakanlar,听J枚nk枚ping University
"This research shows that how consumers respond to their partners鈥� unsustainable behaviors depends on the amount of relationship power they possess: high-relationship-power individuals compensate for their partners鈥� unsustainable behavior by acting in a more sustainable manner relative to their baseline tendencies, but low-relationship-power individuals do not increase their own sustainable behavior."
Sam Ransbotham
Professor, Business Analytics
Management Science
"Learning to Successfully Hire in Online Labor Markets"
Co-author:
听Marios Kokkodis, research data scientist at Meta
"This work is the first to investigate how employers learn to make successful hiring choices in online labor markets. As a result, it provides platform managers with new knowledge and analytics tools to target employer interventions."
MIS Quarterly (forthcoming)
"Asymmetric Reputation Spillover Effects from Digital Agencies in Online Markets"听
Co-authors:
听Panagiotis Adamopoulos, New York University
听 Marios Kokkodis, research data scientist at Meta
"We theorize how variation in creator and agency reputation leads to asymmetric and heterogeneous effects, including that (1) more-reputable agencies have stronger positive effects on less-reputable creators than they have on more-reputable creators, while (2) less-reputable agencies hurt more-reputable creators more than they hurt less-reputable ones."
MIT Sloan Management Review
"Achieving Individual鈥攁nd Organizational鈥擵alue With AI"听
Co-authors:
听David Kiron, editorial director of MIT Sloan Management Review
听听Fran莽ois Candelon,听managing director and senior partner at Boston Consulting Group (BGC)
听 Shervin Khodabandeh, managing director and听senior partner at Boston Consulting Group (BGC)
听 Michael Chu, Harvard University
"New research shows that employees derive individual value from AI when using the technology improves their sense of competency, autonomy, and relatedness. Likewise, organizations are far more likely to obtain value from AI when their workers do. This report offers key insights for leaders on achieving individual and organizational value with artificial intelligence in their organizations."
Beth Schinoff
Assistant Professor, Management and Organization
MIT Sloan Management Review
"Disrespected Employees Are Quitting. What Can Managers Do Differently?"
Co-author:
听Kristie Rogers, Marquette University
"[...] Respect at work is needed more than ever. Ironically, though, the ways for managers to effectively show their remote employees respect seem to be less clear than ever because the typical signals of respect that research prescribes largely necessitate in-person interaction."
Susan Shu and Benjamin Yost
Associate Professor, Accounting (Shu)
Assistant Professor, Accounting (Yost)
Journal of Accounting and Economics
"Does Tax Enforcement Deter Managers' Self-Dealing?"
"We hypothesize that IRS scrutiny from a corporate tax audit raises managers' perceived risk of detection, who refrain from making manipulated stock gifts while the firm is under audit. Using a novel, firm-specific measure to identify firms under audit, we find direct evidence that heightened scrutiny from tax enforcement serves as an effective monitoring mechanism and reduces managers' self-dealing behavior."
Mei Xue
Associate Professor, Business Analytics
Journal of Management Information Systems (forthcoming)
"Is College Education Less Necessary with AI? Evidence from Firm-level Labor Structure Changes"
Co-authors:
听Xing Cao,听Harbin Institute of Technology
听Xu Feng, Tianjin University
听Bin Gu, Boston University
听Yongjie Zhang,听Tianjin University
"The study indicates that AI applications were positively associated with the overall employment as well as the employment of nonacademically- trained workers with no college degrees at the firm level. These associations were more significant in the service sector than in the manufacturing sector."
The Truth About Performance Goals
Can tying CEO compensation to performance goals make contracts too complicated and ultimately lead to lower firm performance? Research from Joseph L. Sweeney Chair and Accounting Professor Mary Ellen Carter says yes. Her working paper, 鈥�,鈥� co-authored by Ana M. Albuquerque and Zhe (Michael) Guo (both Boston University), and Luann J. Lynch (University of Virginia), was featured on the . Their findings were also highlighted by the .
The Scarcity Effect
鈥淐onsumers might even end up spending more in these categories before the benefit runs out鈥omething consumers should be more mindful of,鈥� says Associate Professor of Marketing Min Zhao, who weighed in on the value of a credit card with bonus rewards on purchases. In an interview with , she warned cardholders against excessive spending because of the appeal of a 鈥渓imited time鈥� offer.
Me, Myself, and AI
How is artificial intelligence shaping the business world today? Professor of Business Analytics Sam Ransbotham dug deep into the issue over the course of the fourth and fifth seasons of his podcast "," produced by MIT Sloan Management Review, featuring industry leaders from companies like Boeing, Peloton, Estee Lauder, and more.
Death in the Middle
Marketing Senior Lecturer John Fisher commented to about the decline of department store giant Kohl鈥檚, which illustrates a broader downturn in the department store sector in recent years because of their market position in between discount brands and luxury stores. 鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to be unique,鈥� Fisher says. 鈥淚 think Kohl鈥檚 is caught right now by death in the middle.鈥�
It's Not Easy Being Green
If you saw your partner throwing something away instead of recycling听it, would you feel more compelled to recycle? That answer might depend on who has decision-making power in the relationship, according to a study conducted by听Assistant Professor of Marketing Hristina Nikolova, Associate Professor of Marketing Gergana Nenkov, and a co-author, recently highlighted by听.
An Economic View of Pollution
Many companies that claim to divest pollutive assets actually retain relationships with the buyers of these assets, which means they face fewer regulatory fines even though they ultimately aren鈥檛 reducing pollution. That's according to research conducted by Giuriceo Family Faculty Fellow and Finance Professor听Ran Duchin, with co-authors Janet Gao (Georgetown University) and Qiping Xu (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), reported by .
The Bottom Line
Hillenbrand Family Faculty Fellow and Professor of Finance Vyacheslav (Slava) Fos garnered mentions from , , and , among other outlets, for his paper ",鈥� co-written with Elisabeth Kempf (Harvard University) and Margarita Tsoutsoura (Washington University in St. Louis).
Sensible and Sustainable
Galligan Chair of Strategy and Professor of Management Sandra Waddock shared with how during an economic downturn, sustainable practices might be a win for companies. Waddock, who is also a Carroll School Scholar of Corporate Responsibility, added that sustainability initiatives are often 鈥渟ensible measures that actually save money for the firm.鈥�
Kicks with Perks
Would you buy a pair of sneakers if they got you extra benefits, like backstage access to a concert? Adjunct Professor of Business Analytics Bennett Collen thinks you might. Featured in , his new startup Endstate sells sneakers that come with NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, that offer limited edition privileges to the buyers.
A Hot Topic
Conversations around climate change and the economy are heating up. Assistant Professor of Finance Tuomas Tomunen spoke with , , and regarding his research on how a hotter planet is already being reflected in stock prices, corporate debt, and municipal bonds.
The Business Case for Diversity
How can white collar crime be stopped? Adding women to corporate boards might help. cites research from Associate Professor of Finance Darren Kisgen鈥檚 paper in the Journal of Financial Economics, 鈥�,鈥� co-authored by Jiekun Huang (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Their findings suggest that male executives exhibit overconfidence in corporate decision making compared to women.听
"Unretirement" on the Rise
鈥淭he bottom line is that older workers have gone back to work,鈥� said Alicia Munnell, director of the Boston College Center for Retirement Research and Peter F. Drucker Chair of Management Sciences. Her research on older Americans heading back to work, or 鈥渦nretiring鈥� after declaring early retirement, was referenced in . In addition to her regular contributions to blogs on the subject of retirement, Munnell was also quoted by , , , and other major outlets.
Real Estate Woes
Newton Centre restaurant Ellana鈥檚 Kitchen closed after the landlord sold the property and the owners were unable to afford to buy the space for themselves. Small businesses almost always have to rent space, Business Law and Society Senior Lecturer Edward Chazen told . If they tie up money in real estate, they lack the capital for other essential expenses like inventory and hiring workers.
Are the Sacrifices Required to be an 鈥淚deal Worker鈥� Worth It?听
Research by Management and Organization Assistant Professor Vanessa Conzon, along with co-authors Lindsey Cameron (University of Pennsylvania) and Bobbi Thomason (Pepperdine University) examines the tactics gig workers have used to protect themselves and their reputations during the pandemic and was highlighted by .
What Does R-E-S-P-E-C-T Mean to Employees?
How can management show respect for their employees, both remotely and in-person? Assistant Professor of Management and Organization Beth Schinoff and听co-author Kristie Rogers of Marquette University听explore this question with her recent research, also featured in an article from .
A Historical Approach
highlighted research from Assistant Professor of Finance Paul Schmelzing, together with Kenneth Rogoff (Harvard University) and Barbara Rossi (University of Pompeu Fabra), indicating that 鈥渂ond yields have fallen with metronomic regularity鈥� since 1311 and are 鈥渙n pace to drop below zero for good in 2066.鈥�
Responding to Stockouts
New research by Assistant Professor of Business Analytics Dmitry Mitrofanov and co-author Benjamin Knight, featured in ,听revealed that customers using online grocery delivery services like Instacart were overall more satisfied with their experience and spent more money when they received a warning that an item they had selected was 鈥渓ikely out of stock.鈥�
Assistant Professor of Finance Simcha Barkai was named one of the inaugural . The new three-year fellowship supports research on political economy, regulatory capture, and competitive markets.
Nan Liu, William S. McKiernan Family Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor of Business Analytics, received an honorable mention in the 's (POMS) College of Humanitarian Operations & Crisis Management Best Paper Award for his working paper, 鈥�," written with co-authors Yunting Shi and Guohua Wan, both from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
This year鈥檚 , which took place in June, was co-organized by Assistant Professor of Finance Nancy Xu. The annual event celebrates research by women in finance by providing a forum for junior female faculty members to present their work.
Assistant Professor of Management and Organization Vanessa Conzon received the , co-sponsored by the Work and Family Researchers Network and the Society for Human Resource Management. Conzon was unanimously recommended by the award selection committee because of the 鈥渁mbition of her dissertation work, its methodological strengths, as well as its contributions to theory and practice.鈥� She was also recognized as a runner-up to the Louis Pondy Best Paper Dissertation Award and a finalist for the Industry Studies Association Dissertation Award.
Hillenbrand Family Faculty Fellow and Management and Organization Associate Professor Elizabeth (Bess) Rouse was appointed as an Associate Editor at the .听
Business Analytics Assistant Professor Dmitry Mitrofanov and Benjamin Knight (senior data scientist at Instacart) drew honorable mention in the , for their paper, "."
The 2022 Sp盲ngler IQAM Prize in Financial Economics鈥�听Best Paper听was awarded to Associate Professor of Finance Jonathan Reuter and co-author Eric Zitzewitz (Dartmouth College) for their paper, 鈥�.鈥�
Professor of Business Law and Society David Twomey was named by President Biden to an emergency board helping to resolve disputes between freight rail carriers and their unions. An expert on employment and labor law, Twomey has previously served on similar boards.听
The Award for Scholarly Contribution, given to the paper published five years earlier that has subsequently wielded the greatest influence on the field of organization studies, was given to Assistant Professor of Management and Organization Curtis Chan and Michel Anteby (Boston University) for their paper, 鈥�.鈥� Chan was also recognized by the with a Developmental Reviewer Award for his efforts in crafting reviews that provide constructive feedback in a developmental and positive manner.
Accounting Department Chair and Professor Mark Bradshaw won a (FARS) for his discussion on the subject of attributes and use of financial analyst outputs at the 2022 FARS Midyear Meeting. In addition, he received a听 award from the Journal of Accounting Research, where he was previously honored for his 鈥溾�� in 2021. These recognitions highlight his work as an expert in the field to review, or 鈥渞eferee,鈥� research submitted to the journal.
听has bestowed its Best Paper Award on Hillenbrand Family Faculty Fellow and Finance Professor Vyacheslav (Slava) Fos and co-author Alex Chinco (Baruch College) for their paper 鈥�.鈥澨�
Associate Professor of Management and Organization Judith Clair was honored, along with co-author Katina B. Sawyer (University of Arizona), with the 2022 Award for Outstanding Published Article in Positive Organizational Scholarship for their paper, 鈥�,鈥� originally published in Administrative Science Quarterly. The award was presented by the Michigan Ross Center for Positive Organizations at the University of Michigan.
O鈥機onnor Family Professor of Management and Organization Michael Pratt was recognized with the Coughlin Distinguished Teaching Award by the Carroll School.
The American Marketing Association honored , authored by Associate Professor of Marketing Gerald Smith, with the 2022 Leonard L. Berry Marketing Book Award. This award recognizes innovative ideas within recently published books that have made a significant impact on the field of marketing.
The 鈥攁warded for an outstanding paper on financial markets鈥攚ent to Samuel Hartzmark, Hillenbrand Family Faculty Fellow and Professor of Finance, and David Solomon, David J. Mastrocola Faculty Fellow and Professor of Finance, for their paper, 鈥�.鈥�
The American Accounting Association (AAA) awarded Accounting Professor Jeffrey Cohen the for the paper 鈥�," co-authored by Greg Trompeter (University of Central Florida) and Kimberly D. Westermann (California Polytechnic State University), and published in Contemporary Accounting Research.