Title: Cost of Consumer Collateral: Evidence from Bunching

Title: Patient-Centric Clinical Trial Design Abstract: Clinical trials are critical for advancing medical knowledge about the safety and efficacy of new drugs and treatments. However, traditional clinical trial designs have often prioritized the research objectives of investigators, with limited consideration of patient behavior in both enrollment and treatment selection. This seminar will present a series of Bayesian dynamic programming techniques developed to provide a more comprehensive understanding of patient decision-making processes.

Title: Modeling and Measuring Affective Polarization of the Society Abstract: Politically divided societies are also often divided emotionally: people like and trust those with similar political views (in-group favoritism) while disliking and distrusting those with different views (out-group animosity). This phenomenon, called affective polarization, influences individual decisions, including seemingly apolitical choices such as whether to wear a mask or what car to buy. We present a dynamical model of decision-making in an affectively polarized society, identifying three potential global outcomes separated by a sharp boundary in the parameter space: consensus, partisan polarization, and non-partisan polarization. Analysis reveals that larger out-group animosity compared to in-group favoritism, i.e. more hate than love, is sufficient for polarization, while larger in-group favoritism compared to out-group animosity, i.e., more love than hate, is necessary for consensus. We also show that, counter-intuitively, increasing cross-party connections facilitates polarization, and that by emphasizing partisan differences, mass media creates self-fulfilling prophecies that lead to polarization. Affective polarization also creates tipping points in the opinion landscape where one group suddenly reverses their trends. We also propose a principled framework to measure the in-group favoritism and out-group animosity of the society via social media. Our findings aid in understanding and addressing the cascading effects of affective polarization, offering insights for strategies to mitigate polarization.

Meghan Esson is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Tippie College of Business. Her presentation is titled, "Private Equity in Public-Provider Markets: Cost Efficiency vs. Cream-Skimming.”

Boli Xu is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Tippie College of Business. He will be discussing "Reserve Price Signaling with Public Information: Evidence from Online Auto Auctions."

Buddhika Nettasinghe is an Assistant Professor of Business Analytics at the Tippie College of Business.  Title: "Network scientific view of the emergence of structural disparities in science." Abstract: Glass ceiling effect, defined as “the unseen, yet unbreakable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements,” is a well-studied phenomenon. However, its emergence in directed networks (e.g...