Papers

• Corporate Board Dynamics: Directors Voting for Directors. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 82 (2012), pp. 505-524.
  I propose a model in which corporate directors perform firm tasks (such as monitoring management) and elect new directors. Elections introduce a dynamic element -- the incumbent board's willingness to hire a candidate depends on how the candidate will vote in future hiring rounds. Lack of a commitment mechanism means directors do not always choose board compositions that maximize shareholder value. I use the model to analytically and numerically investigate the effects of stock exchange rules governing board composition and director elections. I find that the regulations benefit shareholders in a dynamic environment, but not in a static environment.

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• Consumer Inference and the Regulation of Consumer Information, manuscript, under review, Dec 2012.
  When consumers are uncertain about the importance of product quality, regulatory actions can serve as a signal from which consumers make inferences. Mandatory disclosures then have two effects: directly communicating quality, and an inferential effect that changes how much weight consumers put on product quality. I model the signaling game between regulators and consumers and find that regulators can often perfectly reveal their private information about the importance of quality through the intensive margin of regulation. Ignoring the inferential effect can lead to over or under-regulation and consumer over or under-estimates of the importance of quality.

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• Board Response to Majority Outsider Regulation, manuscript, under review, Dec 2012.
I compile a balanced panel of 2,174 publicly traded firms and track their board structure from 1999 to 2006. I detail how boards responded to new regulation (introduced in 2002 and enacted in 2003) that required boards of firms traded on the NYSE and NASDAQ exchanges to have a strict majority of outside directors. I examine how non-compliant boards moved into compliance and compare their behavior to compliant firms. Non-compliant firms increased independence, but did not increase board size during the regulatory adjustment period. In addition to offering a detailed look at the data, I create a stylized model of board composition and size and suggest how the responses of non-compliant firms to the exogenous regulatory shock can be used to estimate the curvature of a board "production function."
• Consumer Protection and Online privacy, with Louis Silversin, working paper, Feb 2012.
• Participation in Behaviorally Targeted Ad Networks, working paper, Jan 2011.