NBER Working Papers by Jennifer Brown

We examine misconduct in credence good markets with price taking experts. Using sales complaint data for exclusive and independent insurance agents, we find that exclusive insurance agents working for large branded firms are more likely to be the subject of a justified sales complaint, relative to independent experts, despite doing substantially less business. In addition, more experienced experts attract more complaints per year. We provide one plausible explanation, proposing a model in which price-taking experts extract surplus based on the value of their firm's brand or their own skill through increased misconduct. We also consider some alternative explanations for the observed differences between the misconduct of exclusive and independent experts.

We use novel data from a leading online job search platform to examine the impact of corporate distress on firms’ ability to attract job applicants. Survey responses suggest that job seekers accurately perceive firms’ financial health, as measured by the companies’ credit default swap prices. Analyzing responses to job postings by major financial firms during the recent financial crisis, we find that an increase in an employer’s distress results in fewer and lower quality applicants. These effects are particularly evident when the social safety net provides workers with weak protection against unemployment and for positions requiring advanced training.

We consider how past, current, and future competition within an elimination tournament affect the likelihood of selecting the stronger player as the winner. We present a two-stage model that yields the following main results: (1) a shadow effect – the weaker the expected future competitor, the greater the probability that the stronger player wins in the current stage and (2) an effort spillover effect – previous effort reduces the probability that the stronger player wins in the current stage. We test our theory predictions using data from high-stakes tournaments and betting markets. Empirical results suggest that shadow and spillover effects influence match outcomes.