The Visible Hand

By Jordi Blanes i VidalEducation

The Visible Hand episodes

May 10, 2022 Episode 38: Robert Dur on Team Incentives, Social Cohesion, and Performance
The paper discussed in this episode is “Team Incentives, Social Cohesion, and Performance: A Natural Field Experiment”, by Josse Delfgaauw, Robert Dur, Oke Onemu, and Joeri Sol.

Other papers mentioned in this episode are:
Blanes i Vidal, J., & Nossol, M. (2011). Tournaments without prizes: Evidence from personnel records. Management science, 57(10), 1721-1736.
Carless, S. A., & De Paola, C. (2000). The measurement of cohesion in work teams. Small group research, 31(1), 71-88.
Delfgaauw, J., Dur, R., Sol, J., & Verbeke, W. (2013). Tournament incentives in the field: Gender differences in the workplace. Journal of Labor Economics, 31(2), 305-326.
Dur, R., & Sol, J. (2010). Social interaction, co-worker altruism, and incentives. Games and Economic Behavior, 69(2), 293-301.
41 min
May 03, 2022 Episode 37: Michela Giorcelli on Management Training Programmes
The paper discussed in this episode is “The Dynamics and Spillovers of Management Interventions: Evidence from the Training within Industry Program”, by Nicola Bianchi and Michela Giorcelli.

Other papers mentioned in this episode are:
Alfaro-Urena, Alonso, Isabela Manelici, and Jose P. Vasquez. 2019. “The Effects of Multinationals on Workers: Evidence from Costa Rica.” working paper, UC Berkeley.
Bloom, Nicholas, Benn Eifert, Aprajit Mahajan, David McKenzie, and John Roberts. 2013. “Does Management Matter? Evidence from India.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 128(1): 1–51.
Bruhn, Miriam, Dean Karlan, and Antoinette Schoar. 2010. “What Capital is Missing in Developing Countries?” The American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 100(2): 629–633.
Iacovone, Leonardo, William Maloney, and David J. McKenzie. 2021. “Improving Management with Individual and Group-Based Consulting: Results from a Randomized Experiment in Colombia.” Review of Economic Studies, forthcoming.
McKenzie, David J. and Christopher Woodruff. 2014. “What are we learning from business training and entrepreneurship evaluations around the developing world?” World Bank Research Observer, 29(1): 48–82.
Womack, James, Daniel Jones, and Daniel Roos. 1990. The Machine That Changed the World. New York: Simon and Schuster.
52 min
April 15, 2022 Episode 36: Catherine Thomas on Online Labour Markets
The paper discussed in this episode is “Who Benefits from Online Gig Economy Platforms?”, by Catherine Thomas and Christopher T. Stanton.

Other papers mentioned in this episode are:
Stanton, C. T., & Thomas, C. (2016). Landing the first job: The value of intermediaries in online hiring. The Review of Economic Studies, 83(2), 810-854.
Horton, J. J. (2017). Price floors and employer preferences: Evidence from a minimum wage experiment. Available at SSRN 2898827.
53 min
March 31, 2022 Episode 35: Karol Jan Borowiecki on Teachers and Creativity
The paper discussed in this episode is “Good Reverberations? Teacher Influence in Music Composition since 1450” by Karol Jan Borowiecki
Other papers mentioned in this episode are:
Manski, C. F. (1993). Identification of endogenous social effects: The reflection problem. The review of economic studies, 60(3), 531-542.
45 min
March 23, 2022 Episode 34: Luigi Butera on Measuring Shame and Pride
The paper discussed in this episode is “Measuring the Welfare Effects of Shame and Pride,” by Luigi Butera, Rob Metcalfe, William Morrison, and Dmitry Taubinsky.
51 min
March 10, 2022 Episode 33: Elena Lucchese on the Effect of Ambulance Response Time on Heart Attack Survival
The paper discussed in this episode is “It could be worse...it could be raining: Ambulance response time and health outcomes”, by Elena Lucchese
Other papers mentioned in this episode are:
Avdic, D. (2016). Improving efficiency or impairing access? Health care consolidation and quality of care: Evidence from emergency hospital closures in Sweden. Journal of Health Economics, 48:44-60.

Doyle, J. J., Graves, J. A., Gruber, J., and Kleiner, S. A. (2015). Measuring returns to hospital care: Evidence from ambulance referral patterns. Journal of Political Economy, 123(1):170-214.

Finkelstein, A., Gentzkow, M., and Williams, H. (2016). Sources of geographic variation in health care: Evidence from patient migration. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 131(4):1681-1726.

Murphy, K. M. and Topel, R. H. (2006). The value of health and longevity. Journal of Political Economy, 114(5):871-904.
33 min
February 21, 2022 Episode 32: Jordi Blanes i Vidal on Face-to-face Communication in Organisations
The paper discussed in this episode is “Face-to-Face Communications in Organisations”, by Diego Battiston, Jordi Blanes i Vidal, and Tom Kirchmaier.
Other papers mentioned in this episode are:
Blanes i Vidal, J., & Kirchmaier, T. (2018). The effect of police response time on crime clearance rates. The Review of Economic Studies, 85(2), 855-891.
Bolton, P., & Dewatripont, M. (1994). The firm as a communication network. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 109(4), 809-839.
Garicano, L. (2000). Hierarchies and the Organization of Knowledge in Production. Journal of Political Economy, 108(5), 874-904.
Van Zandt, T. (1999). Real-time decentralized information processing as a model of organizations with boundedly rational agents. The Review of Economic Studies, 66(3), 633-658.
35 min
February 10, 2022 Episode 31: Francesco Amodio on Workplace Incentives and Organizational Learning
The paper discussed in this episode is “Workplace Incentives and Organizational Learning”, by Francesco Amodio and Miguel A. Martinez-Carrasco.
Other papers mentioned in this episode are:
Amodio, F., & Martinez-Carrasco, M. A. (2018). Input allocation, workforce management and productivity spillovers: Evidence from personnel data. The Review of Economic Studies, 85(4), 1937-1970.
Chan, T. Y., Li, J., & Pierce, L. (2014). Learning from peers: Knowledge transfer and sales force productivity growth. Marketing Science, 33(4), 463-484.
Conley, T. G., & Udry, C. R. (2010). Learning about a new technology: Pineapple in Ghana. American economic review, 100(1), 35-69.
Manski, C. F. (1993). Identification of endogenous social effects: The reflection problem. The review of economic studies, 60(3), 531-542.
Sandvik, J. J., Saouma, R. E., Seegert, N. T., & Stanton, C. T. (2020). Workplace knowledge flows. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 135(3), 1635-1680.
46 min
December 10, 2021 Episode 30 (Job Market Edition): Evgenii Fadeev on Patent Citations between Suppliers and Customers
The paper discussed in this episode is “Creative Construction: Knowledge Sharing in Production Networks”, by Evgenii Fadeev.
Other papers mentioned in this episode are:
Arrow, K. (1962). Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention. in R. Nelson, eds., The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, (pp. 609–625).
Autor, D. H., Dorn, D., & Hanson, G. H. (2013). The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States. American Economic Review, 103(6), 2121–2168.
Lim, K. (2009). The Many Faces of Absorptive Capacity: Spillovers of Copper Interconnect Technology for Semiconductor Chips. Industrial and Corporate Change, 18(6), 1249–1284.
43 min
December 09, 2021 Episode 29 (Job Market Edition): Marcos Salgado on Connections in the Spanish Empire
The paper discussed in this episode is “Building Loyalty through Personal Connections: Evidence from the Spanish Empire”, by Marcos Salgado.
Other papers mentioned in this episode are:
Fracassi, C., & Tate, G. (2012). External Networking and Internal Firm Governance. The Journal of Finance, 67(1), 153-194.
Xu, G. (2018). The Costs of Patronage: Evidence from the British empire. American Economic Review, 108(11), 3170-98.
32 min