Calendrier du 11 mars 2024
Roy Seminar (ADRES)
Du 11/03/2024 de 17:00 à 18:30
R1-09
CASTRO-PIRES Henrique (University of Surrey)
The Effect of Exit Rights on Cost-based Procurement Contracts (with Rodrigo Andrade and Humberto Moreira)
We examine the principal-agent problem concerning the design of a procurement contract for a firm that acquires information gradually and possesses exit rights. In the initial period, the firm receives a private signal regarding the project's cost. By the subsequent period, the firm gains full knowledge of the cost and determines whether to terminate the contract. Our findings indicate that for substantial ex-post outside option values, the optimal mechanism resembles a cost-plus contract. This implies that transfers are not contingent on ex-ante cost estimates but solely on actual costs. Our proof accommodates a cost-overrun interpretation of this result: we demonstrate that any non-cost-plus contract, which appears economically advantageous for the principal over the optimal cost-plus contract, induces incentives for the firm to misreport its expected cost and exercise the ex-post outside option in the event of high realized costs. Furthermore, we establish that, in contrast to scenarios lacking exit rights, competition among multiple firms for the project fails to eliminate firms' information rents, even in settings with an infinite number of competitors
Econometrics Seminar
Du 11/03/2024 de 16:15 à 17:30
Sciences Po, room H405
MENZEL Konrad (NYU)
Transfer Estimates for Causal Effects across Heterogeneous Sites
We consider the problem of extrapolating treatment effects across heterogeneous populations (sites/contexts). We consider an idealized scenario in which the researcher observes cross-sectional data for a large number of units across several experimental sites in which an intervention has already been implemented to a new target site for which a baseline survey of unit-specific, pre-treatment outcomes and relevant attributes is available. We propose a transfer estimator that exploits cross-sectional variation between individuals and sites to predict treatment outcomes using baseline outcome data for the target location. We consider the problem of determining the optimal finite-dimensional feature space in which to solve that prediction problem. Our approach is design-based in the sense that the performance of the predictor is evaluated given the specific, finite selection of experimental and target sites. Our approach is nonparametric, and our formal results concern the construction of an optimal basis of predictors as well as convergence rates for the estimated conditional average treatment effect relative to the constrained-optimal population predictor for the target site. We illustrate our approach using a combined data set of five multi-site randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate the effect of conditional cash transfers on school attendance.
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Régulation et Environnement
Du 11/03/2024 de 12:00 à 13:30
R1-09
ZHANG Shuang (Imperial College London)
*Microclimate risks and urban businesses
A heat wave pans out differently across areas within a city. This paper documents these microclimate variations, estimates the damage function on urban small businesses, and studies mitigation strategies. We: (1) leverage high-resolution satellite data to document sub-city temperature variations during a hot day; (2) use geo-located revenue and consumer traffic data from over 150,000 restaurants and other eatery service establishments in a mega city of China to estimate the damage function of these microclimate shocks on business outcomes; and (3) present new evidence that urban green spaces around businesses mitigate the microclimate shocks they experience. Our research highlights location microclimate management as an important part of business strategies in the face of rising climate risks.