Uri Simonsohn
Assistant Professor
OPIM - The Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania
Last update: 2009 10 12
Working Papers
Simonsohn, U. "eBay's Crowded Evenings: Competition Neglect in Market Entry Decisions" (R&R Management Science [minor revision])
Too many sellers end their auctions at peak time, so they lose money.
Saiz, A. & Simonsohn U. "Proxying for Unobservable Variables with Internet Document Frequency" (R&R at JASA [major/risky revision])
Frequency of Internet documents about X proxies for frequency of X; using insight we replicate published studies predicting corruption.
Simonsohn U. "Lessons from an Oops at Consumer Reports: Invalid Information is Ignored Just Fine & Consumers do Listen to Experts" (submitted to JMR)
Consumer Reports released & then retracted info on carseat safety. Surprisingly, people successfully ignored the retracted information.
Publications
Simonsohn, U. (forthcoming) "Weather to Go to College", The Economic Journal
More prospective college students enroll if they visit campus on cloudy day.
Simonsohn, U. (2009) "Direct-Risk-Aversion: Evidence from Risky Prospects Valued Below Their Worst Outcome" Psychological Science, V20(6) p.686-692
People value lotteries less than their worst outcome due to uncertainty; not confusion or "joint-evaluation."
Small, D. & Simonsohn U. (2008) "Friends of Victims: Personal Experience and Prosocial Behavior." Journal of Consumer Research, V.35 p.532-542
Donors give more to charities helping the misfortune of someone they know.
Simonsohn, U. & Ariely D. (2008) "When Rational Sellers Face Non-Rational Consumers: Evidence from Herding on eBay," Management Science V54(9) p.1624-1637
eBay bidders choose auctions with more bids, so sellers start them cheap.
Simonsohn, U., Karlsson, N., Loewenstein, G. and Ariely, D. (2008) "The Tree of Experience in the Forest of Information: Overweighing Experienced Relative to Observed Information" Games and Economic Behavior, 62, pp. 263-286
People respond more to information that affected them directly.
Simonsohn, U. (2007) "Clouds Make Nerds Look Good: Field Evidence of the Influence of Incidental Factors on Decision Making", Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 20(2) p.143-152
College applicants’ academic attributes are weighted more if evaluated on cloudy days.
Simonsohn, U. & Loewenstein G. (2006) "Mistake #37: The Impact of Previously Faced Prices on Housing Demand," The Economic Journal, 116(1) pp.175-199
Movers from more expensive cities rent more expensive apartments, at first.
Simonsohn, U. (2006) "New-Yorkers Commute More Everywhere: Contrast Effects in the Field," The Review of Economics and Statistics, 88(1) pp.1-9
Movers from cities with longer commutes live further from work, at first.
Other
Book review of Gintis, Bowles, Boyd and Fehr. "Moral Sentiments and Material Interest: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life." Journal of Economic Literature, September 20
Review of book on non-strategic reciprocity.