Working Papers

• "The Dynamics of Managerial Attention in Knowledge Work: Evidence from Architectural Projects"

with Wouter Dessein, Desmond (Ho-Fu) Lo, Hideo Owan

This study examines managerial attention in knowledge-intensive work. We propose that a manager's time use in a project involves initial project setup, which includes understanding, specifying, and delegating tasks, and ongoing project adjustment, which involves overseeing the team's task execution. Our theoretical predictions align with micro-level data from architectural design teams: (i) the manager's peak attention hours occur before those of the team, and (ii) both the manager and the team exhibit higher attention levels during initial project setup than during ongoing project adjustment. This pattern is more pronounced in highly knowledge-intensive projects and those with greater information frictions. Finally, deviations from our predicted managerial attention are associated with higher team hours and lower overall profitability.

• "Manager Attention in the Knowledge Hierarchy"

with Wouter Dessein, Desmond (Ho-Fu) Lo, Hideo Owan

• "How Good Managers Steer Their Projects: Front Loading of Team Labor"

with Jed DeVaro, Hideo Owan

Using detailed project management records from the design department in a large Japanese architectural & engineering consultancy firm, we estimate the manager effects on the project profitability. One standard deviation increase in unobserved manager ability increases the profitability by 6 percentage points. Based on interviews with seven project managers, we hypothesize that managers improve team performance by better planning, better communication with both client and project members and better understanding of the client's needs and decision-making style, which all help to front-load design work, reduce waiting time, and avoid wasteful redesigning. We provide supporting evidence from the analyses of labor input data, and three-hundred-sixty-degree evaluation records. Especially, we find that the speed of project execution, quality of communication with subordinates, and degree centrality in the internal network could be important mediating factors.

• "Effort and Incentive Pay in Retail Managers"

with Hideshi Itoh, Desmond Lo, Chieko Minami

• "Shipment Frequency and International Trade Costs"

with Anna Ignatenko, Konstantin Kucheryavyy

We introduce variable marginal costs of exporting in a heterogeneous firms trade model à la Melitz (2003). In our setup, the marginal costs of exporting depend on the quantity shipped in addition to the standard iceberg trade costs. Under the Pareto distribution of firms' productivities, our model implies a tractable gravity equation and an expression for welfare gains from trade, for which the Arkolakis et al. (2012) formula for gains from trade is a special case. This costs structure can be micro-found through a firm's inventory management problem, and the key parameter can be estimated using the frequency of shipment of exporters. Under the log-normal distribution of firms' productivities, we calibrate all trade costs using Chinese transaction-level data. The ad-valorem equivalent rate for logistics costs is minor for productive firms, but it is substantial for less productive firms.

• "Foreign Direct Investment and Trade Dynamics in Vietnam after the US-PRC Trade Dispute"

with Yesim Elhan-Kayalar, Konstantin Kucheryavyy, Manabu Nose, Yasuyuki Sawada, Nguyen Thanh Tung

Work-in-Progress

• "Promotion Hierarchies: Why Workers Work Harder under Good Bosses"

with Guido Friebel, Hideo Owan, Kensuke Sawada