MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

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1 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY OFFICE CONTACT INFORMATION 50 Memorial Drive, E HOME CONTACT INFORMATION 254 Summer St Somerville, MA Mobile: MIT PLACEMENT OFFICER Professor Benjamin Olken MIT PLACEMENT ADMINISTRATOR Ms. Beata Shuster DOCTORAL STUDIES Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) PhD, Economics, Expected completion June 2013 DISSERTATION: Essays on Labor Economics DISSERTATION COMMITTEE AND REFERENCES Professor Joshua Angrist 50 Memorial Drive, E Professor Robert Stavins John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Room L-306 Cambridge, MA Professor Heidi Williams 50 Memorial Drive, E52-274C PRIOR EDUCATION BA, Mathematics and Economics, Summa Cum Laude, Middlebury College, 2006 CITIZENSHIP United States GENDER: Male FIELDS TEACHING EXPERIENCE Primary Fields: Labor Economics Microeconomics (undergraduate, MIT course 14.01), Teaching Assistant to Professor Jeffrey Harris Foundations of Development Policy (undergraduate/graduate, MIT course 14.74/14.740), Teaching Assistant to Professor Esther Duflo

2 OCTOBER PAGE 2 RELEVANT POSITIONS Development Economics: Microeconomic Issues and Policy Models (graduate, MIT course ), Teaching Assistant to Professor Esther Duflo and Professor Abhijit Banerjee Quantitative Methods in Economics and Business (undergraduate, Harvard course S-110), Teaching Assistant to Professor Subramanian Swamy Research Assistant to MIT Professor Joshua Angrist Senior Research Assistant to Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Economist Lorenz Goette FELLOWSHIPS, HONORS, AND AWARDS PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Alternate, Fulbright Scholarship Highest Honors, Middlebury College economics thesis High Honors, Middlebury College mathematics thesis Phi Beta Kappa, Middlebury College Referee: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization American Economic Journal: Applied RESEARCH PAPERS Long-Term Mortality Effects of an NFL Career (Job Market Paper) Professional football is a high profile example of a dangerous industry. Most National Football League (NFL) players suffer some combination of concussions, ligament damage, and broken bones. While NFL retirees face numerous medical issues stemming from their football careers, playing in the NFL increases lifetime income for most players and may also encourage good fitness. Therefore, mortality effects of playing in the NFL are unclear. Analyzing players born between 1939 and 1975, I find that players with longer NFL careers have slightly lower mortality rates before age 40 but show similar mortality at ages 50, 60, and 70 (the oldest age in my sample). I use position played and draft position to control for extant differences in athletic ability. Since career-shortening injuries may reduce life expectancy, I use career patterns to identify serious injuries. I also study high-bmi players, for whom career length may increase mortality at older ages, and positions with a high risk of injury. Though I cannot comment on quality of life differences, I conclude that the combined physical and monetary effects of NFL career length on mortality are negligible. When Opportunity Knocks, Who Answers? New Evidence on College Achievement Awards (with Joshua Angrist and Philip Oreopoulos, NBER Working Paper No ) We evaluate the effects of academic achievement awards for first and secondyear college students studying at a Canadian commuter college. The award scheme offered linear cash incentives for course grades above 70. Awards were paid every term. Program participants also had access to peer advising by

3 OCTOBER PAGE 3 upperclassmen. Program engagement appears to have been high but overall treatment effects were small. The intervention increased the number of courses graded above 70 and points earned above 70 for second-year students, but generated no significant effect on overall GPA. Results are somewhat stronger for a subsample that correctly reproduced the program rules. We argue that these results fit in with an emerging picture of mostly modest effects for cash award programs of this type at the post-secondary level. Moral Hazard, Peer Monitoring, and Microcredit: Field Experimental Evidence from Paraguay (with Jeffrey Carpenter, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Working Paper 10-6) Given the substantial amount of resources currently invested in microcredit programs, it is more important than ever to accurately assess the extent to which peer monitoring by borrowers faced with group liability contracts actually reduces moral hazard. We conduct a field experiment with women about to enter a group loan program in Paraguay and then gather administrative data on the members repayment behavior in the six-month period following the experiment. In addition to the experiment which is designed to measure individual propensities to monitor under incentives similar to group liability, we collect a variety of the other potential correlates of borrowing behavior and repayment. Controlling for other factors, we find a very strong causal relationship between the monitoring propensity of one s loan group and repayment. Our lowest estimate suggests that borrowers in groups with above median monitoring are 36 percent less likely to have a problem repaying their portion of the loan. Besides confirming a number of previous results, we also find some evidence that risk preferences, social preferences, and cognitive skills affect repayment. The Effects of Expectation on Perception: Experimental Design Issues and Further Evidence (Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Working Paper 07-14) Numerous studies have found that top down processes can affect perceptions. This study examines some of the issues involved in designing field experiments aimed at discovering whether top down mental processes affect perceptions, and, if so, how the influence takes place. Lee, Frederick, and Ariely (2006) (LFA) attempt to go further by testing whether expectations affect perceptions directly, by altering how sensory receptors and/or the brain s processing centers interpret an outside stimulus or indirectly, for example, by changing the amount of attention paid to the outside stimulus. In order to test the robustness of the findings in LFA, this paper reports the results of a field experiment similar to the one analyzed in LFA. The field experiment, designed to address some potential confounding factors in this type of research, confirms that expectations can alter perceptions. However, it also shows that heterogeneity across individuals can play a role in determining the nature of this effect, a finding that complicates the interpretation of results such as those in LFA. To frame the analysis, this paper discusses the difficulties in designing this type of experiment, makes some improvements to existing designs, and suggests some ways of eliminating the confounding influences that remain.

4 OCTOBER PAGE 4 RESEARCH IN PROGRESS To Tank or Not to Tank? Firm versus Worker Incentives in the NBA (with Christopher Walters) High draft picks are a coveted commodity in the NBA. Teams are often accused of losing intentionally ( tanking ) in order to increase their odds of receiving a favorable pick in the league's draft lottery. This paper answers two questions related to tanking in the NBA: (1) What is the value of receiving the first draft pick? (2) Do teams lose intentionally to secure higher draft positions? We answer the first question by controlling for the probability of winning the lottery in a linear regression framework. The estimates indicate that winning the draft lottery increases attendance by 5 percentage points during the five year period following the draft. Receiving the first pick is also associated with a small increase in win percentage, though this effect is less precisely estimated. To answer the second question, we analyze games played by non-playoff teams near the end of the season. Using a difference in differences methodology that compares games in which a team can potentially change its lottery odds to games in which these odds are fixed, we find strong evidence of tanking. Playoff-eliminated teams are 14 percentage points more likely to lose a game when doing so increases their chances in the draft lottery. In light of these findings, we examine whether teams tank by benching star players (workers), or whether players themselves put in less effort. We examine the incentives for each party in a principle-agent framework. Does Player Race Affect Hiring Through the NFL Draft? Numerous studies have investigated pay differences by race in professional sports and other industries, with mixed findings. Relatively little research exists, however, concerning racial bias in hiring. The National Football League (NFL) is a particularly interesting industry in which to study this issue, since around 70 percent of the League s players are black and hiring data are readily available. NFL teams hire top young players in an annual draft. Teams take turns selecting players in the draft, and selection gives the team exclusive hiring rights. Therefore, each player s selection rank in the draft order proxies for teams valuation of his skill. Using the 1990 to 2009 NFL drafts, I control for draft position and look for outstanding differences in NFL performance by race. Black players drafted in the 1990s early in the draft (potential stars) tend to outperform white players drafted at a similar position. Although this difference has eroded over time, since 2000, black players drafted late have been more likely to see some game action compared with similarly drafted white players. I discuss these differences in the context of racial bias post-hire, customer-driven discrimination, and racial stereotypes concerning player type and position. Steroids, Aging, and Contracts in Major League Baseball Anecdotal evidence and changes in batting ability suggest that many Major League Baseball (MLB) players used performance enhancing drugs in the 1990s and early 2000s. Increased testing and penalties starting around 2005, along with various federal investigations, appear to have decreased steroid use

5 OCTOBER PAGE 5 substantially. Offensive production has dropped steadily and only a handful of players test positive for banned substances each year. I examine the effects of this rule change on contracting in MLB. I find that teams signed older star players during the steroid era anticipating strong performance through players mid-to-late-30s. As supplement use has decreased, performance by older players in the top 25th percentile by salary has also decreased dramatically. I use young star players as a control group in a difference-in-differences framework to show that this change is largely driven by players above 31 years old. While teams may not have anticipated the end of the steroid era in baseball, I find surprising evidence that teams continue to sign older players to unfavorable long-term contracts. I discuss these findings as they relate to team time preferences and the team-player principle-agent relationship.