This dissertation studies the pricing of jump risk in the cross-section, which builds on understanding the cross-sectional structure of jumps at market jump times, develops nonparametric measures of idiosyncratic jump risk, and investigates its asset pricing implications. Chapter 1 is joint work with Professor Viktor Todorov, in which we study...
Economic activity is mostly performed by groups of agents that form organizations and collectives. In this dissertation I explore the effects of two frictions, namely conflicting preferences and contracting with externalities, on the characteristics of agents that jointly constitute a given organization or collective. First, in many professional environments workers...
Androgen receptor pathway inhibitors are the mainstay treatment for advanced prostate cancer, but resistance is common. Here, we used a CRISPR activation screen to identify genes that promote enzalutamide resistance in the metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer cell line LNCaP. We found that activation of the TGF-β target gene, PRRX2, promoted...
This dissertation consists of three chapters on contract theory. In Chapter 1, ``Agency in Hierarchies: Middle Managers and Performance Evaluations'', I study the optimal joint design of incentives and performance rating scales in a principal-manager-worker hierarchy. The principal wants to motivate the manager and the worker to exert unobservable effort....
This thesis examines the role of the media in stock markets and the role of transparency in investment decisions. In the first two chapters, I investigate how the contrasting trends in media coverage and earnings guidance have affected stock price informativeness over the past two decades. I develop a model...
Numerous insights into the sensorimotor systems that guide the control of voice have been garnered by observing how the system responds to manipulations of its auditory feedback. However, current approaches may be limited in the exploration of more complex parameters of volitional and adaptive voice control due to their limited...
Since its discovery in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), efforts have beenmade to measure and characterize the properties of the Higgs boson. Among these efforts
have been searches for rare decays of the Higgs predicted by the standard model (SM) of
particle physics. One such decay is the...
Body size is one of the most discernible ways in which animal species vary. The blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), the largest animal on earth, can reach up to 30 m in length and weigh up to 200 tonnes. At the other extreme, a species of frog called Paedophryne amauensis is...
Scalable processing of well-defined interfaces is key not only for wider application of two-dimensional (2D) materials in technology but also for improved fundamental understanding. Atomic layer deposition has useful characteristics, especially self-limited growth at low temperatures, that make it well suited for the production of uniform interfaces. Related processes, such...
Nanotechnology research broadly encompasses the exploration of the unique chemical,optical, electronic, or biological properties of materials with dimensions < 1 µm. Inorganic
nanoparticles are one such class of materials, with properties that are exceptionally sensitive to
particle size and structure. This is especially evident in the field of heterogeneous chemical...