Working Papers

This paper uses millions of task assignments across hundreds of hair salons from management software to study the connection between task assignment within the establishment and productivity. There is significant dispersion in productivity and internal task specialization, and a strong association between the two: The top 25 percent of salon-quarters in terms of specialization are on average 68 percent more productive than the bottom 25 percent.

Firms increasingly rely on recruiters to find talent. Recruiters are typically paid using refund contracts, which specify a payment upon a successful candidate suggestion and hire, and a refund if a candidate is hired but leaves for any reason during an initial period of employment.

Pricing decisions are crucial for managing a firm’s reputation and maximizing profits. Consumer reviews reflect both the product quality and its price, with more favorable reviews being left when a product is priced lower.

In this paper, I study how voluntary labor supply decisions within an organization impact workplace injury using novel data on the payroll and workers’ compensation claims of Los Angeles traffic officers.

In this paper we demonstrate tips are sensitive to service quality even when future interaction is unlikely. Using a novel data set covering 150,000 hair salon appointments where customers can be observed over time, we are able to exploit variation in service quality and exogenous separation rates.