More info: Bio and CV

A.k.a.:
Dad to Elias, Ella, and Irena
Husband of Mary K. Coffey
"JZ" to grad school classmates and colleagues

Research Interests
Fields: household finance, intertemporal choice, psychology&economics, development, public finance, law&economics,
                            high finance (10,000 feet)
   
Methods: field experiment design and implementation, survey design and implementation

Applications: business & policy innovations in personal/retail financial markets (consumer, small business, microfinance)
Recent coverage in The Washington Post, RAND Banking and Financial Services Newsletter, LiveScience, The Oregonian

Working Papers

Borrowing High vs. Borrowing Higher: Sources and Consequences of Dispersion in Individual Borrowing Costs, with Victor Stango

You can pick your friends, but you need to watch them: Loan screening and enforcement in a referrals field experiment (January 2012), with Gharad Bryan and Dean Karlan

Behind the GATE Experiment: Evidence on Effects of and Rationales for Subsidized Entrepreneurship Training (January 2012),  with Rob Fairlie and Dean Karlan

Wintertime for Deceptive Advertising? (January 2012), with Eric Zitzewitz
(revised from August 2009 version with additional data, previous title: "Snowed: Deceptive Advertising by Ski Resorts")
  The Chronicle of Higher Education misses the points;Zinman on WCAX and NPR (4Jan2010), and other broadcasts; NYTimes online (22jan2010), Salon, USA Today (Associated Press), and elsewhere in print

Limited and Varying Consumer Attention: Evidence from Shocks to the Salience of Bank Overdraft Fees (April 2011), with Victor Stango

Getting to the Top of Mind: How Reminders Increase Saving (January 2011), with Karlan, McConnell, and Mullainathan
  Coverage  in the Wall Street Journal, Slate, Kiplinger's, and elsewhere

Expanding Microenterprise Credit Access: Using Randomized Supply Decisions to Estimate the Impacts in Manila (January 2010), with Dean Karlan
  thanks to David Roodman for prodding us, also discussed in The Economist, The Boston Globe, Financial Times, etc.

In Harm's Way? Payday Loan Access and Military Personnel Performance (August  2008)
with Scott Carrell, revising with additional data, new version of paper coming "soon", coverage in Financial Times

Household Borrowing High and Lending Low Under No-Arbitrage (April 2007)
   previous title: "Piecing Together a Portfolio Puzzle: Accounting for why Households Borrow High and Lend Low"

Consumer Homing on Payment Cards: From Theory to Measurement (August 2007)
with Chris Snyder

Portfolio Choice as Liquidity Constraints Relax: Evidence from a Credit Card Supply Shock (January 2003)

Some Coming Attractions
A Personal Touch: Text Message Reminders and Loan Repayment, with Dean Karlan and Melanie Morten

Price and Other Elasticities of Demand for Saving, with Dean Karlan and Maggie McConnell

Borrow Less Tomorrow: Behavioral Approaches to Debt Reduction, with Dean Karlan

Long-Run Price Elasticities of Demand for Microcredit: Evidence from a Countrywide Field Experiment in Mexico, with Dean Karlan

Is there a Behavioral "g-factor"? A Search for Common Factor(s) in Behavioral Intertemporal Choice, with Victor Stango and Joanne Yoong

Forthcoming or Published
List Randomization for Sensitive Behavior: An Application for Measuring Use of Loan Proceeds, forthcoming, Journal of Development Economics (special issue on measurement), with Dean Karlan

Microcredit in Theory and Practice: Using Randomized Credit Scoring for Impact Evaluation, Science, 332(6035), 1278-1284, with Dean Karlan

Being Surveyed Can Change Later Behavior and Related Parameter Estimates
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10(1073), pp. 1-6, January 2011, joint with Alix Zwane, Eric Van Dusen, William Pariente, Clair Null, Edward Miguel, Michael Kremer, Dean Karlan, Richard Hornbeck, Xavier Giné, Esther Duflo, Florencia Devoto, Bruno Crepon and Abhijit Banerjee.

Put Your Money Where Your Butt Is: A Commitment Contract for Smoking Cessation
 American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2(4): 213-35, October 2010, with Xavier Gine and Dean Karlan
 see NPR Morning Edition and The Economist to sample media coverage; also Money Magazine  Jan 2011 (print only)

Fuzzy Math, Disclosure Regulation, and Credit Market Outcomes: Evidence from Truth-in-Lending Reform
  this version supersedes "How a Cognitive Bias Shapes Competition..."
Review of Financial Studies 24(2): 506-534, February 2011, with Victor Stango
  mentioned in The New Yorker

Exponential Growth Bias and Household Finance
  previous titles: "Fuzzy Math and Household Finance: Theory and Evidence", "The Price is Not Right..."
Journal of Finance,  64(6), December 2009, 2807-2849, with Victor Stango
   featured in The Wall Street Journal (January 16, 2008); Forbes.com (March 19, 2009), Parade Magazine (May 10, 2009)

What’s Advertising Content Worth? Evidence from a Consumer Credit Marketing Field Experiment
  previous title: "What's Psychology Worth?..."   Web Appendix   Data
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 125(1), February 2010, with M. Bertrand, D. Karlan, S. Mullainathan, and E. Shafir

Observing Unobservables: Identifying Information Asymmetries with a Consumer Credit Field Experiment
Econometrica, 77(6), November 2009, pp. 1993-2008, with Dean Karlan.
long version (recommended for teaching)   Web Appendix  Data

Credit Elasticities in Less-Developed Economies: Implications for Microfinance
American Economic Review, 98(3),  June 2008, pp. 1040-68. with Dean Karlan.  data  more results

Restricting Consumer Credit Access: Household Survey Evidence on Effects Around the Oregon Rate Cap
Journal of Banking and Finance, 34(3), March 2010, 546-556

Expanding Credit Access: Using Randomized Supply Decisions to Estimate the Impacts    Web Appendix   Data
Review of Financial Studies, 23(1), January 2010, with Dean Karlan
   winner of 2006 USAID Private Sector Development Impact Assessment Initiative
   featured in The Economist (August 4, 2007); Business Week online (December 13, 2007)

Small Individual Loans and Mental Health: A Randomized Controlled Trial Among South African Adults
BMC Public Health, 8:1, pp. 409-, December 2008, with Lia Fernald, Rita Hamad, Dean Karlan, and Emily Ozer

Social and Economic Correlates of Depressive Symptoms and Perceived Stress in South African Adults
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 62, pp. 538-544, with Rita Hamad, Lia Fernald, and Dean Karlan

Lying About Borrowing
Journal of the European Economic Association (Papers and Proceedings), 6(2-3), April-May 2008. with D. Karlan.

Where is the Missing Credit Card Debt? Clues and Implications    Technical working paper version
Review of Income and Wealth, 55(2), 249-265; featured on creditcards.com

Debit or Credit?      Web Appendix    EndNote template for JBF reference style
Journal of Banking and Finance, 33(2), February 2009, pp. 358-366
   2006 version: contains details on measurement error issues
   2004 version: more polemical, focusing on admittedly low-powered tests of  neoclassical vs. mental accounting models

What Do Consumers Really Pay on Their Checking and Credit Card Accounts? Explicit, Implicit, and Avoidable Costs
American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 99(2), May 2009, 424-29, with Victor Stango
  some related coverage in The Oregonian, Canadian Business

Youth Smoking in the United States:  Evidence and Implications.  NBER working paper version
 in Risky Behavior Among Youths: An Economic Analysis, ed. Jonathan Gruber, University of Chicago Press, 2000, with Jonathan Gruber
 

Plain Language Summaries, Arguments, and Ideas

WRITINGS:
Another View: The Agency Consumers Really Need, New York Times Dealbook op-ed, March 29, 2010
  with Victor Stango

A review of related empirical research on retail payments, in Kahn, C.M. (ed.), Effective Oversight of Payment and Settlement Systems: Maintaining financial plumbing, The Marketing & Management Collection, Henry Stewart Talks

Does ad content affect consumer demand? @lliance, September 2009
  with Dean Karlan and Manfred Kuhn

How government can guide small borrowers Financial Times op-ed (April 29, 2009; print version April 30, 2009)
  with Dean Karlan

Debit vs. Credit: How People Choose to Pay (Filene Research Institute, November 2008)
  with Victor Stango

Randomised Trials for Strategic Innovation in Retail Finance (2009)
forthcoming in Real Money, New Frontiers: Case Studies of Financial Innovations in Africa, ed. Mark Napier, Juta & Co. Ltd.; with Nathaniel Goldberg and Dean Karlan

In Defense of Usury.  Wall Street Journal op-ed (November 1, 2007)
  with Dean Karlan

Fuzzy Math and Red Ink: A Primer
  with Victor Stango

Fuzzy Math in Household Finance: A Practical Guide  (December 2007)
  with Victor Stango

Optimizing Loan Contracting and Marketing Using Field Experimentation (November 2006)
  with Dean Karlan, Prepared for the 2006 Microcredit Summit

SOME RECENT APPEARANCES AND PRESENTATIONS (NOT TIED TO SPECIFIC PAPERS ABOVE)
Behavioral Research and Product Development for Financial Wellness (for financial service providers), USHFI/Ford Behavioral Product Development Initiative Webinar, (Oct 2011)

R&D for Financial Wellness (for employers), PSCA Conference (September 2011)

Converting Borrowers into Savers: Some Product Development Ideas, Behavioral Finance Forum (May 2011). Video.

Field Experiments and Beyond for R&D in Retail Finance, Payment Cards Center 10th Anniversary Conference (12/10)

Behavioral Innovations for Influencing (Savings) Behavior, Institute for Research on Poverty, U. of Wisconsin (12/10)

R&D on Messaging: Getting and Staying at Top of Mind, CFSI Underbanked Conference (June 2010)

Treasury Department Meeting on Small-Dollar Credit and Financial Empowerment (March 4, 2010)

R&D for Financial Health (Financial Counseling Research Roundtable Meeting, Philly Fed, January 2010)

Information Technology and Markets for Information (IPA Funders/Partners conference, January 2010)

New Commitment Devices (American Economic Association Meetings, January 2010)

Behavioral Retail Finance: Challenges in Moving from Research to Policy, 10/28/09
  Casey/New America/Sage Foundation Behavioral Economics and Policy Meeting

New, Safe, and Affordable Credit Options for America's Underbanked... Implications for Government Policy, 10/23/09
  Notes from my talk on credit access
  Also, Dean Karlan and I asked Congressman Barney Frank some questions, check back or elsewhere for a transcript

Putting the "R" in R&D: Theory-Driven Experiments (May 2009)
MIT Center for Digital Business Research Workshop on "The Emerging Economics of Exponential Experimentation"

Promoting Financial Health: A Three-Legged Stool  (May 2009)
Prepared for Tess Tyson's Wellness Works class here at Dartmouth

Payday Loans and Bank Overdrafts: Some Policy Approaches, RAND/Behavioral Finance Forum (May 2009)
  video of proceedings, a bit of related content in Financial Times

FiSCA Small Loan Dialogue Meeting; NH Commission to Study Access to Credit (October 2008)

Expanding Credit Access (How do subprime loans affect borrowers?)
 Bank Structure Conference (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago), May 15, 2008

What to do About Fuzzy Math and Red Ink?
Behavioral Finance Forum Webinar, November 28, 2007

Treating Financial Literacy: Promising Alternatives to Financial Education
Federal Reserve System Community Affairs Conference, November 14, 2007

Getting from R to D: Cutting Edge Research for Product & Market Development
Filene Research Institute i³ Team Stampede, September 2007

Randomized Experimentation for the Program Manager: A Quick How-To Guide
International Finance Corporation Monitoring and Evaluation Conference, May 2007

Randomized-Control Trials for Business Solutions: Putting Them to Work for You
Filene Research Institute Credit Union Research Council Meeting, October 2006

What Really Drives Consumer (Payment) Choice? Using Academic Models to Develop Business Applications
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Consumer Behavior and Payments Choice Conference II, July 2006

Designing Shock Protection for Vulnerable Households: A How-To Guide
USAID BASIS/CRSP Policy Conference, June 2006

Does Microfinance Make $ense?  Experimental Approaches
International Finance Corporation Monitoring and Evaluation Conference, May 2006

Persuasion in Household Finance: New Evidence, New Applications
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Community Protection Week Conference, March 2006

Elasticities of Demand for Consumer Credit: Evidence and Implications
USAID BASIS/CRSP Researcher/Practitioner Conference, March 2006

Debit or Credit?  (Why "Model" Consumer Payment Choice?)
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Consumer Behavior and Payments Choice Conference, Oct 2005

Framing, Choice, and Household Finance
How to Increase the Effectiveness of Financial Education Workshop, Dartmouth College, Oct 2005

Pro-Poor Growth & Microfinance: Some Related Evidence, and a Research Agenda
The World Bank, April  2005

Studying Microfinance & its Impacts (or Lack Thereof): What Next?
Microfinance Mini-Conference, New York University, April 2005

BROADCAST MEDIA APPEARANCES
WDET (Detroit National Public Radio Affiliate), May 12, 2009. On credit card reform.

WNTK (Dartmouth/Sunapee region, NH), January 12, 2009.  On payday loans.

Filene Research Institute podcast, December 27, 2007.  On fuzzy math in household finance.

KSTP-AM (St. Paul, MN), November 9, 2007.  On consumer lending and related policy issues.

Fox Business News (TV), November 2, 2007.  On consumer lending and related policy issues.

Teaching

Current students: all assignments and related documents are on Blackboard or the reserve reading website.