Research
Working papers
Making the Invisible Hand Visible: Managers and the Allocation of Workers to Jobs
November 2024, Working Paper | [Abstract] | [PDF] | [Supplementary Materials]
Revise and Resubmit, Quarterly Journal of Economics
Coverage: The Visible Hand Podcast, Econimate, The Economist, VoxEU, Marginal Revolution
Best Job Market Paper Award by the European Economic Association and UniCredit Foundation, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research Dissertation Award Honorable Mention, AIEL Labor Dissertation Prize, Ronald Coase Best Dissertation Award by the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics
Abstract: Why do managers matter for firm performance? This paper provides evidence of the critical role of managers in matching workers to jobs within the firm using the universe of personnel records from a large multinational firm. The data covers 200,000 white-collar workers and 30,000 managers over 10 years in 100 countries. I identify good managers as the top 30% by their speed of promotion and leverage exogenous variation induced by the rotation of managers across teams. I find that good managers cause workers to reallocate within the firm through lateral and vertical transfers. This leads to large and persistent gains in workers’ career progression and productivity. Seven years after the manager transition, workers earn 30% more and perform better on objective performance measures. My results imply that the visible hands of managers match workers’ specific skills to specialized jobs, leading to an improvement in the productivity of existing workers that outlasts the managers’ time at the firm.
Meaning at Work
(with Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera and Luigi Zingales)
May 2025, Working Paper | [Abstract]| [PDF]
Revise and Resubmit, Quarterly Journal of Economics
Coverage:
The Economist 2024, The Economist 2025, BFI Research Brief, VoxEU Talk, Le Monde
Abstract: We evaluate a firm’s unusual, worker-centered, solution to the agency problem: enabling employees to reduce the cost of effort rather than pushing them with performance rewards. We randomize the roll-out of the firm’s “Discover Your Purpose” intervention among 2,976 white-collar employees and evaluate their outcomes over two years. We find that performance increases because the low performers either leave the firm or improve in their current jobs. The trade-off between meaning and pay flattens as those with low meaning and high pay leave the firm. Treatment also reshapes stated priorities and reduces gender gaps in preferences and behaviors, including uptake of parental leave. A cost-benefit analysis reveals high returns that are shared between the firm and the employees through higher bonuses. Finally, we show that observational data obscure these gains, causing firms to underestimate the intervention’s true value.
Gender Gaps across the Spectrum of Development: Local Talent and Firm Productivity
(with Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera, and Victor Quintas-Martinez)
April 2025, Working Paper |
[Abstract]| [PDF]
Coverage: Financial Times, The Economist, The Times, Marginal Revolution
Abstract: We ask whether the gendered division of work affects firm productivity across the spectrum of economic development. Personnel records of over 100,000 individuals hired by a global firm that operates in 100 countries reveal that female employee performance is higher where women are underrepresented in the candidate pool. This implies productivity gains from hiring more women, but realizing them would require increasing women's pay relative to men. The findings highlight how unequal gender norms in local labor markets create an equity-efficiency trade-off inside the firm, particularly in low-income countries with conservative gender norms.
Managers and the Cultural Transmission of Gender Norms
(with Kieu-Trang Nguyen, Heather Sarsons and Carla Srebot)
July 2025, Working Paper | [Abstract]| [PDF]
Abstract: This paper examines the influence of managers from countries with different gender norms on workplace culture and gender disparities within organizations. Using data from a multinational firm operating in over 100 countries, we exploit crosscountry manager rotations that are orthogonal to workers to estimate the impact of male managers’ gender norms on the work outcomes of male and female workers within the same team. Managers from countries with one standard deviation more progressive gender attitudes narrow the gender pay gap by 5 percentage points (18%), primarily by promoting women at higher rates. The effects last beyond the manager’s rotation and are concentrated in countries with more conservative gender attitudes. Moreover, local managers in the destination office change their own attitudes, as evidenced by those managers in turn being more gender-equal with their subordinates. Our evidence points to individual managers as critical in shaping corporate culture.
Refereed publications
Leaders in Social Movements: Evidence from Unions in Myanmar
(with Laura Boudreau, Rocco Macchiavello, and Mari Tanaka)
American Economic Review (June 2025), 115(6): 1975-2000 | [Abstract]| [PDF] | [Supplementary Materials]
Coverage: VoxDev Column, J-PAL Summary, Faculti Video, Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business Research Brief, AEA Research Highlight
Abstract: Social movements are catalysts for crucial institutional changes. To succeed, they must coordinate members’ views (consensus building) and actions (mobilization). We study union leaders within Myanmar’s burgeoning labor movement. Union leaders are positively selected on both personality traits that enable them to influence others and ability but earn lower wages. In group discussions about workers' views on an upcoming national minimum wage negotiation, randomly embedded leaders build consensus around the union’s preferred policy. In an experiment that mimics individual decision-making in a collective action set-up, leaders increase mobilization through coordination. Leaders empower social movements by building consensus that encourages mobilization.
Non-refereed publications
Global Managers, Local Workers: Wage Setting Inside a Multinational Firm
AEA Papers & Proceedings (May 2024), 114: 586-91 | [Abstract]| [PDF]
Abstract: How are wages set within a multinational firm? Combining cross-country data on wages and labor regulations with personnel records of a large multinational firm, I find that wage setting depends on the rank of the employee in the firm hierarchy. For managers, wages are set by the headquarters regardless of local labor market conditions. For factory workers, wages are adjusted according to country-specific wages and labor regulations. These results suggest that the multinational's internal labor market shields managers against changes in external market conditions, while the firm adapts to local labor markets for factory workers.