Publications:
1. Startup Acquisitions: Acquihires and Talent Hoarding,
with Jean-Michel Benkert and Igor Letina, European Economic Review, forthcoming.
2. Talent Poaching and Job Rotation,
with Diego Battiston and Miguel Espinosa, Management Science 71 (2025), 2975-2992.
3. Happy Times: Measuring Happiness Using Response Times,
with Nick Netzer, American Economic Review 113 (2023), 3289-3322.
4. Optimal Contest Design: Tuning the Heat,
with Igor Letina and Nick Netzer, Journal of Economic Theory 213 (2023), 105616.
5. When Does Centralization Undermine Adaptation?,
with Dimitri Migrow, Journal of Economic Theory 205 (2022), 105533.
6. Preferences, Confusion and Competition,
with Andreas Hefti and Armin Schmutzler, Economic Journal 132 (2022), 1852-1881.
7. Monotone Equilibria in Signalling Games,
with Harry Pei, European Economic Review 124 (2020), 103408.
8. Delegating Performance Evaluation,
with Igor Letina and Nick Netzer, Theoretical Economics 15 (2020), 477-509.
9. Targeted Information and Limited Attention,
with Andreas Hefti, RAND Journal of Economics 51 (2020), 402-420.
10. On Linear Transformations of Intersections,
with Alexey Kushnir, Set-Valued and Variational Analysis 28 (2020), 475-489.
11. Voting with Public Information,
Games and Economic Behavior 113 (2019), 694-719.
12. On the Equivalence of Bayesian and Dominant Strategy Implementation for Environments with Non-Linear Utilities,
with Alexey Kushnir, Economic Theory 67 (2019), 617-644.
Working Papers:
1. "Time is Knowledge: What Response Times Reveal," with Jean-Michel Benkert and Nick Netzer, February 2025.
Abstract: Response times contain information about economically relevant but unobserved variables like willingness to pay, preference intensity, quality, or happiness. Here, we provide a general characterization of the properties of latent variables that can be detected using response time data. Our characterization unifies and generalizes results in the literature, solves identification problems of binary response models, and has many new applications. We apply the result to test and support the hypothesis that marginal happiness is decreasing in income, a principle that is commonly accepted but so far not established empirically.
2. "Persuasion versus Presentation," with Carl Heese, December 2023.
Abstract: In many economic situations, people communicate strategically not only to influence the decision-making of their audience but also to shape the perception of certain unobserved characteristics of themselves (e.g. morality, loyalty, or capability). To study such situations, we propose a model of Bayesian persuasion in which a sender endowed with a private type designs the communication about a payoff-relevant state to a receiver. The sender, concerned with both the impacts on the receiver's action and how her type is perceived, aims to strike a balance between persuasion and self-presentation under optimal communication. Whether the receiver fares better or worse compared to the pure persuasion setting may depend on the selected equilibrium, and the welfare effects can be non-monotone with respect to the relative strength of the sender's different motives. We illustrate our findings within various classic payoff environments, for instance with quadratic losses or state-independent sender preferences. Finally, we use the model to shed new light on a wide range of applications.
3. "Managing Burnout: The Critical Role of Middle Managers in Worker Retention and Performance," with Yuyu Chen, Miguel Espinosa, and Jingchen Zhu, July 2025.
Abstract: Burnout is a growing concern in modern workplaces, with serious consequences for employee well-being, talent retention, and organizational performance. While middle managers are known to play a key role in shaping employee experiences, little is understood about how their day-to-day decisions affect burnout and productivity. This paper opens the black box of middle management by showing that the way managers allocate tasks drives both worker performance and turnover. We find that even with better information systems, outcomes depend heavily on managerial quality: good managers improve productivity and retain top talent, while other managers overburden high-performing workers, leading to burnout and attrition. These results highlight that technology alone is not enough; effective people management is critical to unlocking productivity and sustaining healthy organizations.
4. "Engineering Privacy Concerns: A Cross-Country Survey Experiment," with Yu Gao, Ying Lei, Juanjuan Meng, Xi Weng, and Ruoyan Zhang, July 2025.
Abstract: We conduct a large-scale survey experiment across six culturally diverse countries (China, Germany, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and the United States) to test whether information about privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), such as encryption and federated learning, reduces concerns about personal data collection and increases acceptance of facial recognition, We also examine heterogeneity by digital literacy and privacy motivation. We find that PETs information lowers privacy concerns in Germany, the United States, and China, particularly among individuals with lower digital literacy and those motivated by instrumental considerations. However, it has no effect on the acceptance of facial recognition. These findings highlight both the reach and limits of technical assurances, and underscore the relevance of distinguishing between instrumental and intrinsic privacy motivations in shaping public attitude toward emerging technologies.
中文期刊发表 (Publications in Chinese):
1. "有限理性下的集体合作：理论与应用," 与胡涛合作, 《经济学 (季刊) 》，2023年第23卷第6期，2213-2230页。
2. "相关性误判与策略性信息混淆," 与沈吉、王禛阳合作, 《经济管理学刊》，2024年第3卷第1期，55-82页。
1. Startup Acquisitions: Acquihires and Talent Hoarding,
with Jean-Michel Benkert and Igor Letina, European Economic Review, forthcoming.
2. Talent Poaching and Job Rotation,
with Diego Battiston and Miguel Espinosa, Management Science 71 (2025), 2975-2992.
3. Happy Times: Measuring Happiness Using Response Times,
with Nick Netzer, American Economic Review 113 (2023), 3289-3322.
4. Optimal Contest Design: Tuning the Heat,
with Igor Letina and Nick Netzer, Journal of Economic Theory 213 (2023), 105616.
5. When Does Centralization Undermine Adaptation?,
with Dimitri Migrow, Journal of Economic Theory 205 (2022), 105533.
6. Preferences, Confusion and Competition,
with Andreas Hefti and Armin Schmutzler, Economic Journal 132 (2022), 1852-1881.
7. Monotone Equilibria in Signalling Games,
with Harry Pei, European Economic Review 124 (2020), 103408.
8. Delegating Performance Evaluation,
with Igor Letina and Nick Netzer, Theoretical Economics 15 (2020), 477-509.
9. Targeted Information and Limited Attention,
with Andreas Hefti, RAND Journal of Economics 51 (2020), 402-420.
10. On Linear Transformations of Intersections,
with Alexey Kushnir, Set-Valued and Variational Analysis 28 (2020), 475-489.
11. Voting with Public Information,
Games and Economic Behavior 113 (2019), 694-719.
12. On the Equivalence of Bayesian and Dominant Strategy Implementation for Environments with Non-Linear Utilities,
with Alexey Kushnir, Economic Theory 67 (2019), 617-644.
Working Papers:
1. "Time is Knowledge: What Response Times Reveal," with Jean-Michel Benkert and Nick Netzer, February 2025.
Abstract: Response times contain information about economically relevant but unobserved variables like willingness to pay, preference intensity, quality, or happiness. Here, we provide a general characterization of the properties of latent variables that can be detected using response time data. Our characterization unifies and generalizes results in the literature, solves identification problems of binary response models, and has many new applications. We apply the result to test and support the hypothesis that marginal happiness is decreasing in income, a principle that is commonly accepted but so far not established empirically.
2. "Persuasion versus Presentation," with Carl Heese, December 2023.
Abstract: In many economic situations, people communicate strategically not only to influence the decision-making of their audience but also to shape the perception of certain unobserved characteristics of themselves (e.g. morality, loyalty, or capability). To study such situations, we propose a model of Bayesian persuasion in which a sender endowed with a private type designs the communication about a payoff-relevant state to a receiver. The sender, concerned with both the impacts on the receiver's action and how her type is perceived, aims to strike a balance between persuasion and self-presentation under optimal communication. Whether the receiver fares better or worse compared to the pure persuasion setting may depend on the selected equilibrium, and the welfare effects can be non-monotone with respect to the relative strength of the sender's different motives. We illustrate our findings within various classic payoff environments, for instance with quadratic losses or state-independent sender preferences. Finally, we use the model to shed new light on a wide range of applications.
3. "Managing Burnout: The Critical Role of Middle Managers in Worker Retention and Performance," with Yuyu Chen, Miguel Espinosa, and Jingchen Zhu, July 2025.
Abstract: Burnout is a growing concern in modern workplaces, with serious consequences for employee well-being, talent retention, and organizational performance. While middle managers are known to play a key role in shaping employee experiences, little is understood about how their day-to-day decisions affect burnout and productivity. This paper opens the black box of middle management by showing that the way managers allocate tasks drives both worker performance and turnover. We find that even with better information systems, outcomes depend heavily on managerial quality: good managers improve productivity and retain top talent, while other managers overburden high-performing workers, leading to burnout and attrition. These results highlight that technology alone is not enough; effective people management is critical to unlocking productivity and sustaining healthy organizations.
4. "Engineering Privacy Concerns: A Cross-Country Survey Experiment," with Yu Gao, Ying Lei, Juanjuan Meng, Xi Weng, and Ruoyan Zhang, July 2025.
Abstract: We conduct a large-scale survey experiment across six culturally diverse countries (China, Germany, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and the United States) to test whether information about privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), such as encryption and federated learning, reduces concerns about personal data collection and increases acceptance of facial recognition, We also examine heterogeneity by digital literacy and privacy motivation. We find that PETs information lowers privacy concerns in Germany, the United States, and China, particularly among individuals with lower digital literacy and those motivated by instrumental considerations. However, it has no effect on the acceptance of facial recognition. These findings highlight both the reach and limits of technical assurances, and underscore the relevance of distinguishing between instrumental and intrinsic privacy motivations in shaping public attitude toward emerging technologies.
中文期刊发表 (Publications in Chinese):
1. "有限理性下的集体合作：理论与应用," 与胡涛合作, 《经济学 (季刊) 》，2023年第23卷第6期，2213-2230页。
2. "相关性误判与策略性信息混淆," 与沈吉、王禛阳合作, 《经济管理学刊》，2024年第3卷第1期，55-82页。
