My aliases include:
"Da-da" to Elias and Ella
"JZ" to grad school classmates and colleagues

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

Applications: business and policy innovations in retail financial markets (consumer/small business/microfinance)

Working Papers (including Requested Revisions)

Restricting Consumer Credit Access: Household Survey Evidence on Effects Around the Oregon Rate Cap (Sept. 2008)

In Harm's Way? Payday Loan Access and Military Personnel Performance (August  2008)
  joint with Scott Carrell

Put Your Money Where Your Butt Is: A Commitment Savings Account for Smoking Cessation (August 2008)
  joint with Xavier Gine and Dean Karlan
  NPR Morning Edition, March 6, 2008

Exponential Growth Bias and Household Finance (June 2008)  Web Appendix
  previous titles: "Fuzzy Math and Household Finance: Theory and Evidence", "The Price is Not Right..."
revised and resubmitted, Journal of Finance,  joint with Victor Stango
   featured in The Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2008

Fuzzy Math, Disclosure Regulation, and Credit Market Outcomes (November 2007)
  joint with Victor Stango

Expanding Credit Access: Using Randomized Supply Decisions to Estimate the Impacts (July 2008)
revise and resubmit (round 2), Review of Financial Studies, joint 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)

Observing Unobservables: Identifying Information Asymmetries with a Consumer Credit Field Experiment (July 2008)
conditionally accepted, Econometrica, joint with Dean Karlan

What’s Advertising Content Worth? Evidence from a Consumer Credit Marketing Field Experiment (May 2008)
   previous title: "What's Psychology Worth?..."
   joint with Marianne Bertrand, Dean Karlan, Sendhil Mullainathan, and Eldar Shafir
revise and resubmit, Quarterly Journal of Economics

Where is the Missing Credit Card Debt? Clues and Implications (September 2007)
revise and resubmit, The Review of Income and Wealth

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)
  joint with Chris Snyder

Microcredit and Mental Health: A Randomized Experiment Among South African Adults (June 2008)
  joint with Lia Fernald, Rita Hamad, Dean Karlan, and Emily Ozer

Portfolio Choice as Liquidity Constraints Relax: Evidence from a Credit Card Supply Shock. Older Version (new version coming one of these days)

Some Coming Attractions
Intertemporal Choice Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Evidence from Checking and Credit Card Account Data
(joint with Victor Stango)

The Risk of Asking: Being Surveyed Affects Later Behavior
(joint with Esther Duflo, Xavier Gine, Dean Karlan, and William Pariente)

What Drives Household Savings Rates? Evidence on Price and Marketing Effects from Three Field Experiments
(joint with Dean Karlan and Sendhil Mullainathan)

Microcredit, Microenterprise Growth, and Household Well-Being: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Manila
(joint with Dean Karlan)

Forthcoming or Published
Does Mental Accounting Matter for Spending Control? (preliminary title)
American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, forthcoming May 2009, joint with Victor Stango

Debit or Credit? (current version: August 2008)  Web Appendix    EndNote template for JBF reference style
forthcoming, Journal of Banking and Finance
   2006 version: contains details on measurement error issues
   2004 version: more polemical, focusing on admittedly low-powered tests of  neoclassical vs. mental accounting models of high-frequency intertemporal choice

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

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

Social and Economic Correlates of Depressive Symptoms and Perceived Stress in South African Adults (June 2008)
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 62, pp. 538-544, joint with Rita Hamad, Lia Fernald, and Dean Karlan
published version available at http://jech.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/62/6/538

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, joint with Jonathan Gruber
 

Plain Language Summaries, Arguments, and Ideas

WRITINGS:
Randomized Trials for Strategic Innovation in Retail Finance (January 2008)
  joint with Nathaniel Goldberg and Dean Karlan

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

Fuzzy Math and Red Ink: A Primer
  joint with Victor Stango

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

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

SOME COMPLETED PRESENTATIONS:
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:
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.

Prospective students:  I will be on leave 2008-09.