Raymond Fisman
Biographic Data
| ID | 5732205 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Raymond Fisman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Raymond |
| FAMILY NAME | Fisman |
| SIGNATURE | FISMAN R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Columbia University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1531-6385 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 373 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Physician Altruism and Spending, Hospital Admissions, and Emergency Department Visits
This cross-sectional study found that Medicare patients treated by altruistic physicians had fewer potentially preventable hospitalizations and emergency department visits and lower spending. Policymakers and leaders of hospitals, medical practices, and medical schools may want to consider creating incentives, organizational structures, and cultures that may increase, or at least do not decrease, physician altruism. Further research should seek t…
Corruption and Firm Growth: Evidence from around the World
We empirically investigate the relationship between corruption and growth using a firm-level dataset that is unique in scale, covering almost 88,000 firms across 141 economies in 2006–20, with wide-ranging corruption experiences. The scale and detail of our data allow us to explore the corruption-growth relationship at a very local level, within industries in a relatively narrow geography. We report three empirical regularities. First, firms that…
Experience of Communal Conflicts and Intergroup Lending
We provide microeconomic evidence on ethnic frictions and market efficiency, using dyadic data on managers and borrowers from a large Indian bank. We conjecture that, if exposure to religion-based communal violence intensifies intergroup animosity, riot exposure will lead to lending decisions that are more sensitive to a borrower’s religion. We find that riot-exposed Hindu branch managers lend relatively less to Muslim borrowers and that these lo…
Social Ties and Favoritism in Chinese Science
We study favoritism via hometown ties, a common source of favor exchange in China, in fellow selection of the Chinese Academies of Sciences and Engineering. Hometown ties to fellow selection committee members increase candidates' election probability by 39 percent, coming entirely from the selection stage involving an in-person meeting. Elected hometown-connected candidates are half as likely to have a high-impact publication as elected fellows w…
Corruption: What Everyone Needs to Know®
Corruption regularly makes front page headlines: public officials embezzling government monies, selling public offices, and trading bribes for favors to private companies generate public indignation and calls for reform. In Corruption: What Everyone Needs to Know®, renowned scholars Ray Fisman and Miriam A. Golden provide a deeper understanding of why corruption is so damaging politically, socially, and economically. Among the key questions exami…
Human Capital and the Supply of Religion
We study the role of labor inputs in religious attendance using data on Oklahoma Methodist congregations from 1961 to 2003. Pastors play a significant role in church growth: replacing a 25th percentile pastor with a 75th percentile one increases annual attendance growth by 3%. A pastor’s performance in his or her first church (largely the result of random assignment) predicts future performance, suggesting a causal effect of pastors on growth. Th…
Labor Supply of Politicians: Labor Supply of Politicians
Using data on Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), we examine the impact of salaries on the composition and the behavior of legislators. Employing a differences-in-differences approach, we exploit the introduction of a law that equalized MEPs' salaries which had previously differed by as much as a factor of 10. Increasing salaries raises the fraction of MEPs who run for re-election but decreases the quality of elected MEPs (proxied by colle…
The Private Returns to Public Office
We study the wealth accumulation of Indian state politicians using public disclosures required of all candidates. The annual asset growth of winners is 3–5 percent higher than that of runners-up, a difference that holds also in a set of close elections. The relative asset growth of winners is greater in more corrupt states and for those holding ministerial positions. These results are consistent with a rent-seeking explanation for the relatively …
Outsourcing Tariff Evasion: A New Explanation for Entrepôt Trade
Corruption, Norms, and Legal Enforcement: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets
We study cultural norms and legal enforcement in controlling corruption by analyzing the parking behavior of United Nations officials in Manhattan. Until 2002, diplomatic immunity protected UN diplomats from parking enforcement actions, so diplomats’ actions were constrained by cultural norms alone. We find a strong effect of corruption norms: diplomats from high‐corruption countries (on the basis of existing survey‐based indices) accumulated sig…
Local Company Politics: A Proposal
Corrupt politicians, and poor government more generally, are commonly viewed as a primary barrier to economic progress. The roots to these problems run deep in many political systems across the developing world, and attempts at reform have rarely found much success. To combat this impasse, we suggest a radical new approach to local politics that, instead of proposing reforms to the electoral process, focuses on the political actors that might ent…
Gender Differences in Mate Selection: Evidence From a Speed Dating Experiment
We study dating behavior using data from a Speed Dating experiment where we generate random matching of subjects and create random variation in the number of potential partners. Our design allows us to directly observe individual decisions rather than just final matches. Women put greater weight on the intelligence and the race of partner, while men respond more to physical attractiveness. Moreover, men do not value women's intelligence or ambiti…
The Effect of Foreign Competition on Forecasting Bias
The Effect of Foreign Competition on Forecasting Bias
This paper studies the effect of foreign competition on the extent of forecasting bias. I focus on two biases often described in the behavioral economics literature: overoptimism and excessive belief in trends. Using data from firm-level surveys in five African countries, I show that firms that do not face foreign competition generate forecasts of sales growth that have greater trend and optimism biases than firms that have foreign competitors. I…
Are corruption and taxation really harmful to growth? Firm level evidence
Does Competition Encourage Credit Provision? Evidence from African Trade Credit Relationships
Previous work has claimed that monopoly power facilitates the provision of credit, because monopolists are better able to enforce payment. Here, we argue that if relationship-specific investments are required by borrowers to establish creditworthiness, monopoly power may reduce credit provision because holdup problems ex post will deter borrowers from investing in establishing creditworthiness. Empirically, we examine the relationship between mon…
Facilitating Development: The Role of Business Groups
Tax Rates and Tax Evasion: Evidence from “Missing Imports” in China
Tax evasion, by its very nature, is difficult to observe. We quantify the effects of tax rates on tax evasion by examining the relationship in China between the tariff schedule and the "evasion gap," which we define as the difference between Hong Kong's reported exports to China at the product level and China's reported imports from Hong Kong. Our results imply that a one-percentage-point increase in the tax rate is associated with a 3 percent in…
Decentralization and corruption: Evidence across countries
Decentralization and Corruption: Evidence from U.S. Federal Transfer Programs
Estimating the Value of Political Connections
As the Indonesian economy went into a downward spiral in the latter half of 1997, there was much speculation and debate as to the reasons behind the sudden decline. Most explanations gave at least some role to investor panic, which had led to a massive outflow of foreign capital. At the root of this hysteria, however, were concerns that the capital that had flowed into Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia had not been used for productive inv…
Are women really the “fairer” sex? Corruption and women in government
Trade Credit and Productive Efficiency in Developing Countries
Are Corruption and Taxation Really Harmful to Growth? Firm-Level Evidence
Exploiting a unique data set containing information on the estimated bribe payments of Ugandan firms, we study the relationship between bribery payments, taxes and firm growth over the period 1995-97. Using industry-location averages to circumvent the potential problem of endogeneity, and to deal with issues of measurement error, we find that both the rate of taxation and bribery are negatively correlated with firm growth. For the full data set, …
Corruption, Norms, and Legal Enforcement: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets
We study cultural norms and legal enforcement in controlling corruption by analyzing the parking behavior of United Nations officials in Manhattan. Until 2002, diplomatic immunity protected UN diplomats from parking enforcement actions, so diplomats’ actions were constrained by cultural norms alone. We find a strong effect of corruption norms: diplomats from high‐corruption countries (on the basis of existing survey‐based indices) accumulated sig…
Are corruption and taxation really harmful to growth? Firm level evidence
The Private Returns to Public Office
We study the wealth accumulation of Indian state politicians using public disclosures required of all candidates. The annual asset growth of winners is 3–5 percent higher than that of runners-up, a difference that holds also in a set of close elections. The relative asset growth of winners is greater in more corrupt states and for those holding ministerial positions. These results are consistent with a rent-seeking explanation for the relatively …
Social Ties and Favoritism in Chinese Science
We study favoritism via hometown ties, a common source of favor exchange in China, in fellow selection of the Chinese Academies of Sciences and Engineering. Hometown ties to fellow selection committee members increase candidates' election probability by 39 percent, coming entirely from the selection stage involving an in-person meeting. Elected hometown-connected candidates are half as likely to have a high-impact publication as elected fellows w…
Decentralization and Corruption: Evidence from U.S. Federal Transfer Programs
Tax Rates and Tax Evasion: Evidence from “Missing Imports” in China
Tax evasion, by its very nature, is difficult to observe. We quantify the effects of tax rates on tax evasion by examining the relationship in China between the tariff schedule and the "evasion gap," which we define as the difference between Hong Kong's reported exports to China at the product level and China's reported imports from Hong Kong. Our results imply that a one-percentage-point increase in the tax rate is associated with a 3 percent in…
Facilitating Development: The Role of Business Groups
Experience of Communal Conflicts and Intergroup Lending
We provide microeconomic evidence on ethnic frictions and market efficiency, using dyadic data on managers and borrowers from a large Indian bank. We conjecture that, if exposure to religion-based communal violence intensifies intergroup animosity, riot exposure will lead to lending decisions that are more sensitive to a borrower’s religion. We find that riot-exposed Hindu branch managers lend relatively less to Muslim borrowers and that these lo…
Corruption and Firm Growth: Evidence from around the World
We empirically investigate the relationship between corruption and growth using a firm-level dataset that is unique in scale, covering almost 88,000 firms across 141 economies in 2006–20, with wide-ranging corruption experiences. The scale and detail of our data allow us to explore the corruption-growth relationship at a very local level, within industries in a relatively narrow geography. We report three empirical regularities. First, firms that…
Trade Credit and Productive Efficiency in Developing Countries
Are Corruption and Taxation Really Harmful to Growth? Firm-Level Evidence
Exploiting a unique data set containing information on the estimated bribe payments of Ugandan firms, we study the relationship between bribery payments, taxes and firm growth over the period 1995-97. Using industry-location averages to circumvent the potential problem of endogeneity, and to deal with issues of measurement error, we find that both the rate of taxation and bribery are negatively correlated with firm growth. For the full data set, …
Estimating the Value of Political Connections
As the Indonesian economy went into a downward spiral in the latter half of 1997, there was much speculation and debate as to the reasons behind the sudden decline. Most explanations gave at least some role to investor panic, which had led to a massive outflow of foreign capital. At the root of this hysteria, however, were concerns that the capital that had flowed into Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia had not been used for productive inv…
Are women really the “fairer” sex? Corruption and women in government
Trade Credit and Productive Efficiency in Developing Countries
Decentralization and corruption: Evidence across countries
Decentralization and Corruption: Evidence from U.S. Federal Transfer Programs
Does Competition Encourage Credit Provision? Evidence from African Trade Credit Relationships
Previous work has claimed that monopoly power facilitates the provision of credit, because monopolists are better able to enforce payment. Here, we argue that if relationship-specific investments are required by borrowers to establish creditworthiness, monopoly power may reduce credit provision because holdup problems ex post will deter borrowers from investing in establishing creditworthiness. Empirically, we examine the relationship between mon…
Facilitating Development: The Role of Business Groups
Tax Rates and Tax Evasion: Evidence from “Missing Imports” in China
Tax evasion, by its very nature, is difficult to observe. We quantify the effects of tax rates on tax evasion by examining the relationship in China between the tariff schedule and the "evasion gap," which we define as the difference between Hong Kong's reported exports to China at the product level and China's reported imports from Hong Kong. Our results imply that a one-percentage-point increase in the tax rate is associated with a 3 percent in…
Gender Differences in Mate Selection: Evidence From a Speed Dating Experiment
We study dating behavior using data from a Speed Dating experiment where we generate random matching of subjects and create random variation in the number of potential partners. Our design allows us to directly observe individual decisions rather than just final matches. Women put greater weight on the intelligence and the race of partner, while men respond more to physical attractiveness. Moreover, men do not value women's intelligence or ambiti…
The Effect of Foreign Competition on Forecasting Bias
The Effect of Foreign Competition on Forecasting Bias
This paper studies the effect of foreign competition on the extent of forecasting bias. I focus on two biases often described in the behavioral economics literature: overoptimism and excessive belief in trends. Using data from firm-level surveys in five African countries, I show that firms that do not face foreign competition generate forecasts of sales growth that have greater trend and optimism biases than firms that have foreign competitors. I…
Are corruption and taxation really harmful to growth? Firm level evidence
Corruption, Norms, and Legal Enforcement: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets
We study cultural norms and legal enforcement in controlling corruption by analyzing the parking behavior of United Nations officials in Manhattan. Until 2002, diplomatic immunity protected UN diplomats from parking enforcement actions, so diplomats’ actions were constrained by cultural norms alone. We find a strong effect of corruption norms: diplomats from high‐corruption countries (on the basis of existing survey‐based indices) accumulated sig…
Local Company Politics: A Proposal
Corrupt politicians, and poor government more generally, are commonly viewed as a primary barrier to economic progress. The roots to these problems run deep in many political systems across the developing world, and attempts at reform have rarely found much success. To combat this impasse, we suggest a radical new approach to local politics that, instead of proposing reforms to the electoral process, focuses on the political actors that might ent…
Outsourcing Tariff Evasion: A New Explanation for Entrepôt Trade
The Private Returns to Public Office
We study the wealth accumulation of Indian state politicians using public disclosures required of all candidates. The annual asset growth of winners is 3–5 percent higher than that of runners-up, a difference that holds also in a set of close elections. The relative asset growth of winners is greater in more corrupt states and for those holding ministerial positions. These results are consistent with a rent-seeking explanation for the relatively …
Labor Supply of Politicians: Labor Supply of Politicians
Using data on Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), we examine the impact of salaries on the composition and the behavior of legislators. Employing a differences-in-differences approach, we exploit the introduction of a law that equalized MEPs' salaries which had previously differed by as much as a factor of 10. Increasing salaries raises the fraction of MEPs who run for re-election but decreases the quality of elected MEPs (proxied by colle…
Human Capital and the Supply of Religion
We study the role of labor inputs in religious attendance using data on Oklahoma Methodist congregations from 1961 to 2003. Pastors play a significant role in church growth: replacing a 25th percentile pastor with a 75th percentile one increases annual attendance growth by 3%. A pastor’s performance in his or her first church (largely the result of random assignment) predicts future performance, suggesting a causal effect of pastors on growth. Th…
Corruption: What Everyone Needs to Know®
Corruption regularly makes front page headlines: public officials embezzling government monies, selling public offices, and trading bribes for favors to private companies generate public indignation and calls for reform. In Corruption: What Everyone Needs to Know®, renowned scholars Ray Fisman and Miriam A. Golden provide a deeper understanding of why corruption is so damaging politically, socially, and economically. Among the key questions exami…
Social Ties and Favoritism in Chinese Science
We study favoritism via hometown ties, a common source of favor exchange in China, in fellow selection of the Chinese Academies of Sciences and Engineering. Hometown ties to fellow selection committee members increase candidates' election probability by 39 percent, coming entirely from the selection stage involving an in-person meeting. Elected hometown-connected candidates are half as likely to have a high-impact publication as elected fellows w…
Experience of Communal Conflicts and Intergroup Lending
We provide microeconomic evidence on ethnic frictions and market efficiency, using dyadic data on managers and borrowers from a large Indian bank. We conjecture that, if exposure to religion-based communal violence intensifies intergroup animosity, riot exposure will lead to lending decisions that are more sensitive to a borrower’s religion. We find that riot-exposed Hindu branch managers lend relatively less to Muslim borrowers and that these lo…
Physician Altruism and Spending, Hospital Admissions, and Emergency Department Visits
This cross-sectional study found that Medicare patients treated by altruistic physicians had fewer potentially preventable hospitalizations and emergency department visits and lower spending. Policymakers and leaders of hospitals, medical practices, and medical schools may want to consider creating incentives, organizational structures, and cultures that may increase, or at least do not decrease, physician altruism. Further research should seek t…
Corruption and Firm Growth: Evidence from around the World
We empirically investigate the relationship between corruption and growth using a firm-level dataset that is unique in scale, covering almost 88,000 firms across 141 economies in 2006–20, with wide-ranging corruption experiences. The scale and detail of our data allow us to explore the corruption-growth relationship at a very local level, within industries in a relatively narrow geography. We report three empirical regularities. First, firms that…
Economics (20 works) · Political science (11 works) · Business (10 works) · Corruption and Economic Development (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Monetary economics (9 works) · Language change (8 works) · Finance (7 works) · Econometrics (6 works) · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth (6 works)