VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Essays in quantitative marketing

The first chapter explores the effect of personalized recommendations on consumer behavior. Personalized recommendations are known for their ability to navigate shoppers to the most relevant products first, saving their time. However, the hidden cost is that shoppers are less likely to find other desirable products along the search process serendipitously. Such a potential cost casts doubts on whether websites should adopt personalized recommendations. I suggest a positive spillover effect of gained efficiency from personalized recommendations: consumers explore more because increased search efficiency countervails an increasing opportunity cost of time. In addition, total shopping time is expected to decrease because the new equilibrium marginal benefit of exploration is lower. I examine these hypotheses empirically using field experiment data from one of China's biggest grocery delivery platforms. My findings are consistent with these hypotheses: consumers reduce search, spend more time exploring other categories and make more purchases while lowering their total shopping time. These findings are important because they show consumers active explorations under time pressure and they demonstrate a demand increasing mechanism of increasing search efficiency through personalized recommendations. The second chapter is joint work with Mingxi Zhu. This chapter studies information disclosure in auctions. Bidding in search advertising is commonplace today. However, determining a bid can be challenging in light of the complexity of the auction process. By designing the mechanism and aggregating the information of many bidders, the advertiser platform can assist less sophisticated advertisers. We analyze data from a platform that initiated a bid recommendation system and find that some advertisers may simply adopt the platform's suggestion instead of constructing their own bids. We discover that these less sophisticated advertisers were lower-rated and uncertain about ad effectiveness before the platform began offering information through the recommended bids. We characterize an equilibrium model of bidding in the Generalized Second Price (GSP) auction and show that following the platform's bid suggestion is theoretically sub-optimal. We then identify sophisticated and less sophisticated advertisers' private values using observed bids and the disclosed information. Counterfactual results suggest that the ad platform can increase revenue and the total surplus when it shares more information. Furthermore, the hybrid of auto-bidding with manual bidding could be a more efficient mechanism as we substitute less sophisticated bidding behavior for algorithmic bidding. These results shed light on the importance of exploring interactions between sophisticated and less sophisticated players when designing a market

Keywords: Business.
Advisor: Hartmann Wesley R. (Wesley Robert)
Ostrovsky Michael
Somaini Paulo
Essays on behavioral economics and social networks

This dissertation contains three essays relating to behavioral economics and social networks. In the first chapter, I experimentally investigate third-party preferences for compensation and punishment after one party financially harms another for their own benefit. I find that demand for both compensation and punishment extends beyond pure distributional concerns, reflecting preferences for (what I term) compensatory and retributive justice, respectively. In the second chapter, I develop a simple model of friendship formation that provides insight into three key empirical patterns regarding homophily, our tendency to form connections with those most similar to us. In the model, agents have homophilic preferences along two dimensions, but homophily is only measured along a single dimension. Via simulations, I show that introducing this second dimension (qualitatively) generates all three noted patterns. In the final chapter, I and co-authors develop a dynamic theory of endogenous preference formation in which people adopt worldviews that shape their judgments about their experiences. The theory generates rich behavioral dynamics, illuminating a wide range of applications and providing potential explanations for a variety of observed phenomena

Keywords: Economics.
Advisor: Bernheim B. Douglas
Jackson Matthew O.
Niederle Muriel
Essays on education policy in Latin America

This dissertation is a collection of three essays on education policy in Latin America. The first chapter delves into understanding the consequences of affirmative action as a tool to increase the participation of marginalized students in selective public colleges in Brazil. The second chapter studies the optimal design of student loans as a lever to foster the inclusion of poor students in private colleges in Brazil. Finally, the third chapter explores the interplay between private and public actors by studying a large increase in the number of public primary and secondary schools in the Dominican Republic

Keywords: Economics.
Advisor: Dupas Pascaline
Einav Liran
Gentzkow Matthew
Somaini Paulo
Essays on financial intermediation

This thesis studies several topical areas in financial intermediation research. In the first chapter, I focus on the roles of financial intermediaries in monetary policy transmission to answer the question of reserve sufficiency. I construct a model linking interbank intraday payment timing with monetary policy implementation. In the second chapter, which is joint work with Darrell Duffie and Adam Copeland, we empirically identify the ten largest repo-active dealer banks as financial intermediaries crucial to the well-functioning of the repo market. We document that repo rates rose above efficient-market levels when the total reserve balances of the ten largest dealer banks declined, and that repo rate spikes are strongly associated with delayed intraday payments of reserves to these large banks. In the third chapter, which is joint work with Anirudha Balasubramanian, we study a trading game with agents who face a high-dimensional estimation problem. Our model addresses the situation faced by key financial intermediaries whose trading strategies involve big data and computational problems

Keywords: Business.
Advisor: Duffie Darrell 
Hebert Benjamin
Krishnamurthy Arvind
Essays on law and economics

This dissertation consists of three essays pertaining to policy for enforcement of law. The first essay discusses the optimal policy under the assumption that detection affects the harm caused by a violation and the gain obtained by a violator. The second essay compares the private and public modes of enforcement in a setting where the policy is determined by a democratic vote. The third essay analyzes the desirability of policies that reward prisoners for good behavior under the assumption that individuals may be time inconsistent

Keywords: Economics.
Advisor: Niederle Muriel
Goldin Jacob
Polinsky A. Mitchell
Essays on machine learning and price impact in institutional finance

Institutional investors play crucial roles in financial markets. First, they delegate investment for individual investors. We show, using machine learning, that fund characteristics can consistently differentiate high from low-performing mutual funds. Fund momentum and fund flow are the most important predictors of future risk-adjusted fund performance, and the returns of predictive long-short portfolios are higher following a period of high sentiment. Second, institutional investors provide liquidity to investor demand. We hypothesize and provide evidence that prices are more inelastic when demand is less diversifiable. We decompose order-flow imbalances into components with varying degrees of diversifiability and estimate their price impacts. Our findings are consistent with weaker liquidity provision at less diversifiable levels

Advisor: Pelger Markus
Giesecke Kay
Krishnamurthy Arvind
Essays on market structure and policy in higher education

This dissertation contains three essays discussing government policy in higher education, the effects of online social networks during college on students after graduating, and how to use search data as a tool to recover characteristics of both products and customers to estimate demand. In the first chapter, co-authored with Shengmao Cao, we study the equilibrium impact of student aid in the United States market for sub-baccalaureate higher education and consider the implications of alternative aid policies. We estimate a structural model of supply and demand in this market. We then derive an optimal voucher policy that maximizes educational quality, measured as the value-added in earnings generated by each sub-baccalaureate college. Our optimal voucher policy highlights the fact that for-profit colleges, despite being lower quality on average, are more effective at increasing enrollment than public community colleges. Consequently, these schools play an important role in improving the educational outcomes of students. In the second chapter, using quasi-random variation from Facebook's entry to college campuses, I exploit a natural experiment to estimate the effect of online social network access on future earnings. My estimates imply that access to Facebook for an additional year in college causes a .61 percentile increase in a cohort's average earnings, translating to an average wage increase of around \ 70 in 2014. My results also suggest that Facebook access decreases income inequality within a cohort. I provide evidence that wage increases comes through the channel of increased social ties to former classmates, which leads to strengthened employment networks between college alumni. In the third chapter of this dissertation, co-authored with Greg Lewis and Giorgos Zervas, we extend a machine learning approach (Bayesian Personalized Ranking) that allows us to jointly learn latent product characteristics and consumer preferences relevant for consumer demand from search data. We show how search data, summarized through these latent parameters, can be combined with existing demand estimation approaches to better predict demand. Our application is to the hotel market, where we combine two datasets: consumers' web browsing histories, and hotel prices and occupancy rates. Using an event study design, we show that closeness in latent characteristic space predicts competition: hotels that are close to new entrants lose the most market share post-entry. We take a more structural approach to the 2016 merger of Marriott and Starwood, demonstrating that by using latent characteristics and consumer preferences learned from search data, we can substantially improve post-merger predictions of demand relative to standard baselines

Keywords: Economics.
Advisor: Gentzkow Matthew
Hoxby Caroline Minter
Somaini Paulo
Essays on obesity in low- and middle-income countries

This dissertation investigates the trends and causes of obesity in low- and middle-income countries. The first chapter (with Tiago Cravo Oliveira Hashiguchi, Blake Thomson, Joseph Dieleman, and Eran Bendavid) investigates the phenomenon that obesity prevalence is highest among wealthier population strata in poorer countries, but the burden of obesity shifts to poorer population strata as national wealth increases. While the flipped wealth gradients of obesity in poor and rich countries are documented, no research shows how this shift happens or where it occurs along the range of economic development. We collated 182 Demographic and Health Surveys and World Health Surveys [n = 2.24 million respondents] from 103 countries with information on respondent height, weight, personal wealth, and country wealth. We estimated the relationship of personal wealth with overweight and obesity, and examined how that relationship varies with country wealth. The transition is driven by increasing obesity among the poor without appreciable decreasing obesity among the wealthy. At a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of $8,000, the prevalence of obesity is no longer the highest among those in the top wealth decile ($10,000 for overweight), and at $30,000, obesity prevalence among those in the poorest decile is higher than among the wealthiest (

Keywords: Health Policy.
Advisor: Bendavid Eran
Bhattacharya Jay
Miller Grant
Essays on the macroeconomics of housing markets

This dissertation studies the macroeconomic implications of government policies and house- hold decisions for housing market outcomes. The first chapter, "The Welfare Effects of Eviction and Homelessness Policies", studies the effects of various rental market policies that address evictions and homelessness. I find that "Right-to-Counsel" drives up rents so much that homelessness increases, and welfare is dampened. While lawyers make it harder to evict delinquent tenants, they are unable to prevent evictions because defaults on rent are driven by persistent shocks to income that cannot easily be smoothed across time. In contrast, rental assistance lowers tenants default risk and as a result reduces both homelessness and evictions and increases welfare. the second chapter, "Self-Assessed Financial Literacy in Housing Markets", studies the role of financial knowledge in home- ownership decisions. I show that households who self-assess them- selves to be more financially literate are more likely to own a house and take a more levered position on their house. I find that this is because households with higher levels of self-assessed financial knowledge have access to more accommodating mortgage terms and better risk-return tradeoffs in the housing market

Keywords: Economics.
Advisor: Piazzesi Monika
Schneider Martin (Professor of economics)
Einav Liran
Establishing a comprehensive and dynamic map of the alloimmune response in solid organ transplantation

The dynamic and multi-dimensional properties of our immune system that makes it so remarkable are the same properties that cause us problems in solid-organ transplantation and causes acute rejection. Our immune system views genetically different tissue of the transplanted organ as a dangerous foreign substance similar to a pathogen and attacks it. The ongoing challenge is to determine how we can circumvent the natural defense mechanisms of the immune system without sacrificing its numerous regulatory functions. The datasets described in this thesis address this challenge by applying high-dimensional cytometry analysis to deep profile the peripheral immune cells involved in acute rejection using a murine model of transplantation. More than 40 different markers are used to obtain a highly granular and multi-parametric proteomic overview of the immune signature that defines acute rejection. This analysis is performed in spleen and lymph node over multiple days post-transplant from day 1 to day 7. T cells, NK cells, monocytes, macrophages, and dendritic cells are expansively profiled to ascertain the differences in protein composition that associate with acute rejection. This high resolution characterization of the immune response reveals a unique phenotypic signature of rejection that is evident by day 5 post-transplantation, and clearly distinguishes rejecting from non-rejecting grafts. This alloimmune phenotype is furthermore conserved across two distinct models of acute rejection. Lastly, strategies to prolong allograft survival are investigated with the use of plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC). The results reported here reveal tolerogenic properties that are unique to pDC when compared to conventional dendritic cells. The molecular profile of these pDC points to a potential mechanism of harnessing the immune system's natural immune suppressive capabilities to prolong graft survival. Taken together, these data provide a comprehensive and dynamic map of the alloimmune response in solid organ transplant and provides a foundation for unveiling new therapeutic strategies that can effectively delay graft rejection

Keywords: Microbiology and Immunology.
Advisor: Krams Sheri Michele 
Bendall Sean
Idoyaga Juliana
Evaluating Patient Needs and Provider Attitudes Towards a Novel Hyperbilirubinemia Treatment Plan

Neonatal hyperbilirubinemia is one of the most prevalent infant conditions, impacting approximately 60 percent of newborns worldwide. However, prior studies have shown high variation in care practices across the United States despite the condition's prevalence. NICU overuse in non-emergent cases is one of the most common and stressful treatments for infants and their mothers. This thesis investigates the feasibility of researching the benefits for patients and providers of a novel transcutaneous bilirubinometer in removing the burden of treatment within the NICU setting. Through interviews with American mothers of jaundiced infants and decision analysis performed on neonatal providers affiliated with Stanford University, I sought to understand and analyze current maternal needs in hyperbilirubinemia treatment and assess provider tolerance for novel options of care. I propose a novel treatment technology and seek to answer two questions: (1) Could the proposed technology potentially reduce core concerns with hyperbilirubinemia treatment among American mothers? (2) Could introducing the proposed technology be a feasible alternative to traditional NICU care? I find favorable evidence for both and discuss future directions for research.

Keywords: Hyperbilirubinemia
Jaundice, Neonatal > Treatment
Neonatology
Maternal and infant welfare
Physician and patient
Clinical medicine > Decision making
Decision making
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Thesis
Advisor: Fan Richard
Higgins Michael
Evaluating Regime Shifts and Shifting Environmental Policy in the Arkansas River near Larned, KS

Characterizing the drivers of flow in non-perennial streams is increasingly important for understanding the impacts of variable flow regimes on local communities and ecosystems. Regime-shift theory has been used to explain changes in other hydrologic systems, but non-perennial streams have yet to be fully explored. Here, the Arkansas River Basin near Larned, KS serves as a place-based case study to determine if changes between flow and no-flow conditions can be described using a regime-shift framework. This thesis combines hydrological, meteorological, and ecological time-series data to test for the presence of statistical early-warning signs commonly associated with regime shifting systems and used a sequential t-test analysis of regime shifts (STARS) algorithm to test for regime shifts in the time series of weekly and monthly no-flow days. While flow data exhibit hints like critical slowing down and asymmetry in flow rates, evidence for increases in both variance and autocorrelation signatures in surface water data level was weak. STARS identified at least five shifts between dry, intermediate, and wet regimes between 1998 and 2021, which are characterized by predominantly no-flow conditions, alternating flowing and no-flow conditions, and predominantly flowing conditions in the river, respectively. The intermediate regime appears to be a transitory phase between the stable wet and dry regimes observed at Larned. Regime shifts at the site are likely driven by a complex interaction between climate, pumping, local vegetation, and stream-aquifer interactions. Recent proposals to federal water policy, including the redefinition of “waters of the United States,” do not alter future protections for the Arkansas River as a navigable waterway. However, evidence of negative feedback loops that enforce no-flow conditions at the Larned site indicates that policy should refrain from excluding non-perennial stream systems from federal protection, especially those of low and ephemeral flow patterns.

Keywords: Earth Energy & Environmental Sciences
Federal Water Pollution Control Act (United States)
Kansas Geological Survey
Hydrogeology
Regime Shift Theory
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Thesis
Advisor: Jones James H.
Konings Alexandra
Zipper Sam
Evaluating the Effects of Higher Education in Mechanical Engineering on Divergent Thinking in Problem Solving

In the last half of the 20th century, academic excellence in engineering education was thought to be synonymous with learning skills associated with convergent thinking and production (Felder, 1988). Now, there has become a broader recognition that creativity and innovation abilities are essential to the success of engineers in the workplace. This recognition comes as today’s workplace is increasingly becoming an environment in which engineers tackle problems from broader perspectives with more interdisciplinary teams (Cropley, 2019; World Economic Forum, 2016; Rieken, 2017). In the present work, I aim to explore how higher education in mechanical engineering affects students’ creative approaches to solving an open-ended engineering design task. In doing so, I establish a framework to analyze different measures of creativity including fluency, novelty, elaboration, and completeness in a comparative study that evaluates 20 students majoring in mechanical engineering or psychology. Moreover, throughout this thesis, I uncover the underpinnings behind how mechanical engineering undergraduates explore decision-making pertaining to creativity and prototyping. The results of this study show a need to encourage mechanical engineering students to pursue additional ideas and to pursue these ideas to a greater extent. This work has implications for how future engineers integrate creativity into the workplace and how engineering is taught.

Keywords: Mechanical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Design Education
Engineering Design
Creativity in Engineering
Engineering Education
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Thesis
Advisor: Sheppard Sheri