Essays on Reference-Dependent Preferences

This dissertation consists of two chapters exploring the economic implications of reference-dependent preferences over incentive design and belief formation.The first chapter studies the intertemporal allocation of incentives in a repeated moral hazard model. Beside consumption utility, reference-dependent agents experience utility from changes in their expectations about present and future income caused by the performance measure realization. In contrast to the prediction with classical preferences but consistent with real-world contracts, this paper shows that if consumption utility is not too concave and if changes in expectations about present income carries sufficiently larger weight in utility than changes in expectations about future income, the optimal contract defers all present incentives into future payments by setting a present fixed wage. Despite this prediction, I further prove that several standard features of the contract with classical preferences---no rents to the agent, conditions to achieve first-best cost and non-optimality of random contracts---still hold.The second chapter studies the temporal path of subjective beliefs when a reference-dependent agent who experiences standard anticipatory utility and utility from changes in these anticipatory feelings waits T periods for a binary outcome realization. Following the optimal beliefs literature, in each period the agent chooses a belief about her likelihood of success to maximize her intertemporal utility. Consistent with the empirical evidence, the model predicts that optimism decreases as the pay-off date approaches if the outcome is important enough or if the agent is sufficiently loss averse. Intuitively, when the pay-off date is distant disappointment is less salient than the joy of hoping favorable outcomes; as the realization date gets closer, however, the threat of disappointment becomes important. Applying the model to the optimal timing of productivity bonuses, I find these should be granted as frequently as possible because optimism acts as a non-pecuniary motivator that allows the principal to induce the desired effort path at a cheaper expected cost

Dynamic effects of price promotions: field evidence, consumer search, and supply-side implications

© 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.This paper investigates the dynamic effects of price promotions in a retail setting through the use of a large-scale field experiment varying the promotion depths of 170 products across 17 categories in 10 supermarkets of a major retailer in Chile. In the intervention phase of the experiment, treated customers were exposed to deep discounts (approximately 30%), whereas control customers were exposed to shallow discounts (approximately 10%). In the subsequent measurement phase, the promotion schedule held discount levels constant across groups. We find that treated customers were 22.4% more likely to buy promoted items than their control counterparts, despite facing the same promotional deals. Strikingly, the magnitude of the dynamic effects of price promotions (when promotional depths are equal across conditions) is 61% of the promotional effects induced by offering shallow vs. deep discounts during the interventio

Globalización: Apertura y tendencias - AD196 201801

Curso general en la carrera de administración, de carácter teórico dirigido a los estudiantes del I ciclo, que busca desarrollar la competencia general de "Comunicación Oral" nivel I y la competencia específica ¿Planificación y control¿ a nivel I. El curso introduce al alumno en el conocimiento de la historia económica, motiva su reflexión acerca de la importancia del escenario internacional y desarrolla en el estudiante la capacidad de comprensión. Permite entender cuál es la lógica de los negocios en la historia de la humanidad, la motivación y la satisfacción de necesidades detrás de cada uno de ellos. Los conocimientos que brinda el curso resultan fundamentales para el análisis de un mundo globalizado, que I. INFORMACIÓN GENERAL CURSO : Globalización: Apertura y Tendencias CÓDIGO : AD196 CICLO : 201801 CUERPO ACADÉMICO : Calderón Contreras, Valentín Jesús Chávez Bravo, Juan Carlos Guzman Mercado, César Pablo Lesevic Roberto, Pablo Antonio Macera Mannucci, Danilo Bruno Maekawa Miyasato, César Daniel Malpartida Carpena, Luis Enrique Martínez Torres Lara, Pedro Carlos Payet Bedoya, María Del Rosario Pulgar Vidal Otalora, Jaime Francisco Revilla Montoya, Pablo Cesar Rodríguez Luna, Rosnel Julia Seiner Lizárraga, Lizardo Alfredo Sáenz Ráez, Jorge Francisco José Ugaz Vallenas, Ricardo Urteaga Fonseca, Luis Ignacio CRÉDITOS : 4 SEMANAS : 16 HORAS : 4 H (Teoría) Semanal ÁREA O CARRERA : Administracion II. MISIÓN Y VISIÓN DE LA UPC Misión: Formar líderes íntegros e innovadores con visión global para que transformen el Perú. Visión: Ser líder en la educación superior por su excelencia académica y su capacidad de innovación. 2 deben realizar los profesionales de la carrera de Negocios. Propósito: El curso busca desarrollar la competencia general de "Comunicación Oral" nivel I y la competencia específica "Planificación y control" a nivel I

European Multicenter Study of ET-COVID-19

Acute ischemic stroke and large vessel occlusion can be concurrent with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection. Outcomes after mechanical thrombectomy (MT) for large vessel occlusion in patients with COVID-19 are substantially unknown. Our aim was to study early outcomes after MT in patients with COVID-19