National Science Foundation

This award funds research in economic theory. The project seeks to improve our understanding of how social networks shape the spread of opinions, products, and ideas. The core objective is to turn insights from theoretical models into practical guidance on how to conduct targeted seeding, how to design regulations for social media, and how to advertise new products with uncertain quality. The award funds three projects. The first project will develop a framework to study how best to target individuals based on their network positions in order to spread a new idea or innovation.

The idea that law struggles to keep pace with technological change has in recent years become a trope. New technologies convey social benefits but also unexpected potential harm. This is particularly troubling in the context of international law, where military technological breakthroughs can disrupt multilateral consensus about who owes whom what. Puzzlingly, old laws are often robust to disruptive technological change, even when there are strong incentives for powerful parties to push for overhaul.

his doctoral dissertation research in economics (DDRIE) project will use machine language and modern economic methods to investigate court decisions on who is an "employee" affect worker's labor outcomes, such as employment tenure, wages, benefits, and unionization. There has been a large increase in "contingent workers" - workers who are on temporary contracts, contracted out, or are independent contractors. These workers have weaker protections in terms of compensation tenure and collective action.

Much of economic analysis is based on the idea that economic agents respond to incentives and that they will increase their effort to understand the consequences of their actions in order to make the right decisions. This research project will use laboratory experiments to test whether increasing the size of reward or punishment (stakes henceforth) while considering how others will react affect the effort one puts into studying the environment before s/he makes the decision. The research will answer the following questions: (i) does the size of stakes affect people?s choices and beliefs?