The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) serves as a hub for cutting-edge analysis and research across the entire University of Chicago economics community, uniting researchers from the Booth School of Business, the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, the...
Inspired by our namesakes, Nobel Laureates Gary Becker and Milton Friedman, who believed that economics research could help improve the world, BFI works with the Chicago Economics community to turn its evidence-based research into real-world impact.
The Predoctoral Research in Economics Program (PREP) is intended to serve as a bridge between college and graduate school for students interested in empirical economics. The program offers unique research and professional training opportunities at the University of Chicago.
Expanding Diversity in Economics+ (EDE+) brings together a diverse group of early undergraduate students to hone their research abilities and technical skills.
Anjali Adukia, Richard Hornbeck, Daniel Keniston, and Benjamin Lualdi
We examine the social construction of race during the United States’ Reconstruction Era, a critical juncture between slavery and Jim Crow segregation. We show that people with the same detailed skin tone, recorded by the Freedman’s Bank (1865-1874), were more...
Daniel Banki, Uri Simonsohn, Robert Walatka, and George Wu
A re-analysis of Oprea (2024)’s data suggests that that measurement error produced by a confusing experimental design underlies the provocative claim that prospect theory’s risk attitudes reflect mistakes arising from “complexity” rather than underlying preferences. In the reported studies, participants...
Daniela Bresciani Andaluz, Ariel Kalil, Haoxuan Liu, Susan E. Mayer, and Rohen Shah
Math skills in early childhood are correlated with future academic achievement. Caregiver engagement in math learning with their children contributes to the growth of children’s math skills. Providing high-quality math materials for caregivers to use in the home may help...
Contrary to the central prediction of signaling models, changes in profits do not empirically follow changes in dividends. We show both theoretically and empirically that dividends signal safer, rather than higher, future profits. Using the Campbell (1991) decomposition, we are able to estimate expected cash flows from data on stock returns. Consistent with our model’s predictions, cash-flow volatility changes in the opposite direction from that of dividend changes and larger changes in volatility come with larger announcement returns. We found similar results for share repurchases. Crucially, the data supports the prediction unique to our model that the cost of the signal is foregone investment opportunities. We conclude that payout policy conveys information about future cash flow volatility. Our methodology can be applied more generally to overcoming empirical problems in testing theories of corporate financing.
The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) serves as a hub for cutting-edge analysis and research across the entire University of Chicago economics community, uniting researchers from the Booth School of Business, the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, the...
Inspired by our namesakes, Nobel Laureates Gary Becker and Milton Friedman, who believed that economics research could help improve the world, BFI works with the Chicago Economics community to turn its evidence-based research into real-world impact.
The Predoctoral Research in Economics Program (PREP) is intended to serve as a bridge between college and graduate school for students interested in empirical economics. The program offers unique research and professional training opportunities at the University of Chicago.
Expanding Diversity in Economics+ (EDE+) brings together a diverse group of early undergraduate students to hone their research abilities and technical skills.
Anjali Adukia, Richard Hornbeck, Daniel Keniston, and Benjamin Lualdi
We examine the social construction of race during the United States’ Reconstruction Era, a critical juncture between slavery and Jim Crow segregation. We show that people with the same detailed skin tone, recorded by the Freedman’s Bank (1865-1874), were more...
Daniel Banki, Uri Simonsohn, Robert Walatka, and George Wu
A re-analysis of Oprea (2024)’s data suggests that that measurement error produced by a confusing experimental design underlies the provocative claim that prospect theory’s risk attitudes reflect mistakes arising from “complexity” rather than underlying preferences. In the reported studies, participants...
Daniela Bresciani Andaluz, Ariel Kalil, Haoxuan Liu, Susan E. Mayer, and Rohen Shah
Math skills in early childhood are correlated with future academic achievement. Caregiver engagement in math learning with their children contributes to the growth of children’s math skills. Providing high-quality math materials for caregivers to use in the home may help...