David I. Levine's Home Page

• Positions I hold
• What I teach
• My books
• Hygiene Heroes: A school-based health curriculum
• Some policy-oriented writings
• Some recent working papers and publications
• Current evaluations
• Some cheap advice
• More about me: CV & Short bio
• Contact me: +1.510.642.1697 or click here for email:

Positions I hold

• Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor, Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley
• Chair, Economic Analysis and Policy Group
• Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA)

What I teach

• BA 24: Films about Work
• BA 154: Undergraduate Industrial Relations
• MBA 201B: Macroeconomics
• MBA 257-4: Business Strategies for Emerging Markets
• PHD 254C & 259: Industrial Relations
• PHD 297T: Research in Corporate Social Responsiblity
• PHD 297B: Research and Theory in Business: Behavioral Science (with Barry Staw)

My books

• Global Challenges in Responsible Business, editor, with C.B. Bhattacharya, Craig Smith and David Vogel, Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• How New is the ‘New’ Employment Contract? with Dale Belman, Gary Charness, Erica Groshen, and K.C. O’Shaughnessy, Upjohn Institute, Kalamazoo MI, 2002. [Read the first chapter in PDF or Buy this book.]
• Evaluation of Carve-outs in Workers’ Compensation Programs in the California Construction Industry, with Cristian Echeverria, Frank Neuhauser, Richard Reuben, and Jeffrey S. Petersen. 2003, Upjohn Institute, Kalamazoo MI. (A related report is here and a summary article appeared in Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 21, 3, 2002: 467-484.)
• The American Workplace: Skills, Pay and Employee Involvement, editor, with Casey Ichniowski, Craig Olson, and George Strauss, Cambridge University Press, 1999. [Buy this book.]
• Working in the Twenty-First Century: Government Policies for Learning, Opportunity, and Productivity, Armonk, NY, M.E. Sharpe, 1998. (Table of Contents and Concluding Chapter) [Buy this book.]
• Reinventing the Workplace: How Business and Employees Can Both Win, Brookings Institution, Washington DC, 1995. [Buy this book]

Educational materials

· King Akbar Writes a Law, illustrated by Jacqueline Zhou, 2013. A children’s story on the importance of good hygiene (complete with invisible ink, threatening swords, and many surprises).

· My Castle, written and illustrated by Katie Holmes, 2013.

Some policy-oriented writings

· “Improving sales offers for improved stoves,” CEGA blog, January 24, 2013.

· “Renting Inefficiency,” with Lucas Davis, Energy Economics Exchange, November 26, 2012.

· “Exorcising phantom power,” Los Angeles Times, November 26, 2012.

· “Randomized Government Safety Inspections Reduce Worker Injuries with No Detectable Job Loss,” testimony before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, Hearing on “Promoting Safe Workplaces Through Voluntary Protection Programs,” June 28, 2012.

· “Do SMS Text Messaging and SMS Community Forums Improve Outcomes of Adult and Adolescent Literacy Programs? Evidence from the Jokko Initiative in Senegal.” With Theresa Beltramo. Final Report to TOSTAN and UNICEF, September 2010.

· “Perspectives on Corporate Governance: Executive Compensation” Case in Point Concept Paper, Caseplace.org, May 2007.

· “Our opportunity to end poverty -- or fail to even try,” San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, May 21, 2006, Page E3.

· “The Wheels of Washington: Groupthink and Iraq,” San Francisco Chronicle, Thursday, February 5, 2004, p. A23.

· “Editorial: Overt Discrimination by Multinational Firms,” Industrial Relations, 37, 2, April 1998, pp. 121-125.

· “Reinventing the Workplace: How Government Can Help,” San Jose Mercury News, December 25, 1995.

· “Brave New Work” interview with Josh Clark, Mother Jones, July/Aug 1997.

· “Knowledge Transfer: Managerial Practices Underlying One Piece of the Learning Organization,” with April Gilbert, COHRE briefing paper, 1998.

Musings

These notes are to provoke thought, but are not complete, even lacking basics such as full citations.

• “Technologies and business models that should exist in poor nations.” 2006.
• “Speculations on the Macroeconomic Consequences of a Nuclear Attack on Moscow,” 2006.

Some recent working papers and publications

· Development Economics

· Indonesian Families

· American Families

· American Workplaces

· Changes in Internal Labor Markets

· Wages

· Effects of Diversity

· Corporate social responsibility

Development Economics (see also Current evaluations, below)

• “Learning What Works – and What Doesn’t: Building Learning into the Global Aid Industry” March 2006.
• “Does Trade Affect Child Health?” with Dov Rothman. Journal of Health Economics. Volume 25, Issue 3, May 2006, pp. 538-554.
• “The Effect of Industrialization on Children’s Education: The Experience of Mexico,” with Anne Le Brun and Susan Helper, Review of Economics and Institutions, vol. 2, n. 2, article 1, Spring 2011.
• “The Economics of International Refugee Law,” with Ryan Bubb and Michael Kremer, forthcoming, Journal of Legal Studies.

Indonesian Families

• “Industrialization, Pollution and Infant Mortality” (June 2010). With Maya Environment and Development Economics, volume 15, issue 05, pp. 557-584.
• “Growth, Industrialization, and the Intergenerational Correlation of Advantage,” with Jon R. Jellema, Industrial Relations, 46, 1, January 2007: 130-170.
• "Financial Constraints on Investment in an Emerging Market Crisis: An Empirical Investigation of Foreign Ownership" with Garrick Blalock and Paul Gertler. Journal of Monetary Economics, 55, 3, April 2008: 568-591.
• “Parental Death and Schooling,” [PDF] with Paul Gertler and Minnie Ames. Review of Economics and Statistics, 86, 1, Feb. 2004: 211-225.
• “Are Investments in Daughters Lower When Daughters Move Away?” with Michael Kevane, World Development, 31, 6, June 2003: 1065-1084.
• “Do Microfinance Programs Help Families Insure Consumption Against Illness?” with Paul Gertler and Enrico Moretti. Health Economics, vol. 18, no. 3, 2009: 257-273. Working paper version, 2007
• “Is Social Capital the Capital of the Poor? The Role of Family and Community in Helping Insure Living Standards Against Health Shocks,” with Paul Gertler and Enrico Moretti, 2004.
• “The Changing Status of Daughters in Indonesia” [PDF] with Michael Kevane. Institute of Industrial Relations working paper 74.
• “Did Industrialization Destroy Social Capital in Indonesia?” with Paul Gertler and Ted Miguel. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 54, 2, winter 2006: 287-318.
• “Does Social Capital Promote Industrialization? Evidence from a Rapid Industrializer,” with Ted Miguel and Paul Gertler, Review of Economics and Statistics, 87, 4 , November 2005: 754-762.
• “The Effects of Industrialization on School Enrollment and Youth Employment in Indonesia,” with Maya Federman. Contributions to Macroeconomics: Vol. 5: No. 1, Article 1.
• “Losing the Presence and Presents of Parents: How Parental Death Affects Children” with Paul Gertler, Sebastian Martinez, and Stefano Bertozzi
• “Gender Bias and The Indonesian Financial Crisis: Were Girls Hit Hardest?” With Minnie Ames. CIDER working paper C03-130. February 2003.

American Families

· “The Growing Importance of Family and Community: An Analysis of Changes in the Sibling Correlation in Earnings,” with Bhashkar Mazumder, Industrial Relations, 46, 1, January 2007: 7-21.

• “How Much of School Effects is Just Sorting? Identifying Causality in the National Education Longitudinal Survey,” with Gary Painter. Forthcoming, Economics of Education Review.
• “The Schooling Costs of Teenage Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing: Analysis with a Within-School Propensity Score Matching Estimator,” [PDF]. With Gary Painter. Review of Economics and Statistics 85, 4, Nov. 2003: 884 – 900.
• “Family Structure and Youths' Outcomes: Which Correlations are Causal?” with Gary Painter; Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Summer, 2000), pp. 524-549 JSTOR
• “Daddies, Devotion and Dollars: How Do They Matter for Youth?” American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 63, 4, October 2004: 813 - 850.

American Workplaces

· “The Effects of OSHA Inspections: Results from a Natural Field Experiment,” with Michael W. Toffel and Matthew S. Johnson. Science. Vol. 336 no. 6083, May 18, 2012: pp. 907-911. Abstract, Reprint, and Full Text

· “Quality Management and Job Quality: How the ISO 9001 Standard for Quality Management Systems Affects Employees and Employers,” with Michael Toffel, IRLE Working paper 172-08. August 2008.

· “The Acceptability of Layoffs and Pay Cuts: Comparing North America with Germany,” with Knut Gerlach, Gesine Stephan, and Olaf Struck. Cambridge Journal of Economics. Dec. 2007, 1-19. (Working paper version at http://repositories.cdlib.org/iir/iirwps/iirwps-130-06.)

· “The New ‘Managerial Misclassification’ Challenge to Old Wage & Hour Law or What is Managerial Work?” with David Lewin, in Contemporary Issues in Employment Relations, David Lewin, ed., LERA Research Volume, Cornell University Press, 2006: 189-222.

· “The Effects of New Work Practices on Workers,” with Michael Handel, in America at Work, Edward E. Lawler III and James O’Toole, editors, Palgrave Macmillan, New York NY: 73-86. (An earlier version appeared in Industrial Relations, 43, 1, January 2004: 1-43.)

· “Sabotage! Survey Evidence on when it is Acceptable,” with Gary Charness. Center for Responsible Business Working paper 12, 2004.

· “Carving out Construction Employees from the Workers' Compensation System in California,” with Jeffrey S. Petersen, Cristian Echeverria, Frank Neuhauser, and Richard C. Reuben. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Vol. 21, No. 3, 467–483 (2002).

· “Employee Involvement and Pay at American Auto Suppliers,” with Susan Helper and Elliot Bendoly.  Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Volume 11, Number 2, Summer 2002, 329–377.

· Book Review of Manufacturing Advantage: Why High-Performance Work Systems Pay Off by Eileen Appelbaum; Thomas Bailey; Peter Berg; Arne L. Kalleberg Industrial and Labor Relations Review Vol. 55, No. 1 (Oct., 2001), pp. 175-176 JSTOR

· “Flexibility versus Efficiency? A Case Study of Model Changeovers in the Toyota Production System” with Paul S. Adler and Barbara Goldoftas, Organization Science Vol. 10, No. 1 (Jan., 1999), pp. 43-68 JSTOR

· “Computer-Mediated Communication as Employee Voice: A Case Study” with Libby Bishop, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Jan., 1999), pp. 213-233 JSTOR

· “Ergonomics, Employee Involvement, and the Toyota Production System: A Case Study of NUMMI's 1993 Model Introduction,” With Paul S. Adler and Barbara Goldoftas, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Apr., 1997), pp. 416-437 JSTOR

· “Do Corporate Executives Have Rational Expectations?” The Journal of Business Vol. 66, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 271-293 JSTOR

· “Long-Term Supplier Relations and Product-Market Structure,” with Susan Helper, Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Oct., 1992), pp. 561-581 JSTOR

· “Just-Cause Employment Policies in the Presence of Worker Adverse Selection,” Journal of Labor Economics, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Jul., 1991), pp. 294-305 JSTOR

· “Just-Cause Employment Policies When Unemployment Is a Worker Discipline Device” American Economic Review, Vol. 79, No. 4 (Sep., 1989), pp. 902-905 JSTOR

· "Reinventing Disability Policy," working paper 65, [PDF] Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley, 1999.

Changes in Internal Labor Markets

• "Changes in the Employment Contract." with Gary Charness. Journal of Economics Behavior and Organization, vol. 1379, 2001. 1-13.
• "Size, Skill and Sorting,” with Dale Belman. Labour 18 (4) 2004: 515–561
• "The Rise and Decline (?) of Internal Labor Markets" [PDF] with Erica Groshen.
• "Changes in Managerial Pay Structures 1986-1992," with K.C. O’Shaughnessey and Peter Cappelli, NBER Working paper 7730. (A later version appeared in Oxford Economic Review, 2000).
• “When Are Layoffs Acceptable? Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment,” with Gary Charness, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Apr., 2000), pp. 381-400 JSTOR

Wages

· “Intention and Stochastic Outcomes: An Experimental Study,” with Gary Charness. Economic Journal, 117 July 2007: 1051–1072.

· “Fairness, Markets, and Ability to Pay: Evidence from Compensation Executives” American Economic Review, Vol. 83, No. 5 (Dec., 1993), pp. 1241-1259 JSTOR

· “Worth Waiting For? Delayed Compensation, Training, and Turnover in the United States and Japan” Journal of Labor Economics Vol. 11, No. 4 (Oct., 1993), pp. 724-752 JSTOR

· “What Do Wages Buy?” Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Sep., 1993), pp. 462-483 JSTOR

· “Can Wage Increases Pay For Themselves? Tests with a Productive Function,” The Economic Journal, Vol. 102, No. 414 (Sep., 1992), pp. 1102-1115 JSTOR

· “Product Quality and Pay Equity Between Lower-Level Employees and Top Management: An Investigation of Distributive Justice Theory,” with Douglas M. Cowherd, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 2, Special Issue: Process and Outcome: Perspectives on the Distribution of Rewards in Organizations (Jun., 1992), pp. 302-320 JSTOR

Effects of Diversity

· “The Effect of Diversity on Turnover: A Very Large Case Study,” with Jonathan Leonard. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 39, 4, July 2006: 457-572.

· “Do Birds of a Feather Shop Together? The Effects of Employees’ Similarity with each Other and With Customers on Performance,” with Jonathan Leonard and Aparna Joshi, Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25, 6, August 2004: 731-754.

· “Do Race, Age, and Gender Differences Affect Manager-Employee Relations? An Analysis of Quits, Dismissals, and Promotions at a Large Retail Firm,” with Laura Giuliano and Jonathan Leonard. Journal of Human Resources. 46, 1, Winter 2011, 26-52.

· “Customer Discrimination,” with Laura Giuliano and Jonathan Leonard. Review of Economics and Statistics. 92, 3, August 2010: 670-678.

· “Manager Race and the Race of New Hires,” with Laura Giuliano and Jonathan Leonard. Journal of Labor Economics. 27, 4, 2009: 589-631.

• “The Effects of Diversity on Business Performance: Report of the Diversity Research Network,” with Thomas Kochan and others, Human Resource Management Journal, 42, 1, Spring 2003: 3-22.
• “A Case Study of the Mortgage Application Process,” with Ken Temkin and Diane Levy, in Mortgage Lending Discrimination: A Review of the Evidence, Margery Austin Turner and Felicity Skidmore, eds, Urban Institute Press, Washington DC, 1999, pp. 137-160.

Corporate Social Responsibility

• “Breaking Down The Wall Of Codes: Evaluating Non-Financial Performance Measurement,” with Aaron Chatterji, California Management Review, winter 2006, pp. 29-51.
• “How Well Do Social Ratings Actually Measure Corporate Social Responsibility?” with Aaron K. Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel. Forthcoming at the Journal of Economics, Management and Strategy.

· “Thermostats for SmartGrid: Models, Benchmarks and Insights.” With Yong Liang and Max Shen. Energy Journal. Forthcoming. (SSRN's Top Ten download list for: Sustainable Technology eJournal.)

Current and recent evaluations

Cookstoves

· “What is a ‘meal’? Comparative methods of auditing carbon offset compliance for fuel-efficient cookstoves.” with Steve Harrell, Theresa Beltramo, Garrick Blalock, Juliet Kyayesimira, and Andrew Simons, Ecological Economics, 128. Aug. 2016: 8-16. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.03.014.

· “Comparing Methods for Signal Analysis of Temperature Readings from Stove Use Monitors.” With Andrew Simons, Theresa Beltramo and Garrick Blalock. Biomass and Bioenergy. 2014. (http://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0961953414003808)

· “Does Peer Use Influence Adoption of Efficient Cookstoves? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial in Uganda” With Andrew Simons, Theresa Beltramo and Garrick Blalock. Health Communications. 20: sup1, 55-66. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10810730.2014.994244

· “The Effect of Marketing Messages, Liquidity Constraints, and Household Bargaining on Willingness to Pay for a Nontraditional Cookstove,” with Theresa Beltramo and Garrick Blalock. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, forthcoming. UC Berkeley: Center for Effective Global Action. 2014. http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/4vj3w941

· “What Impedes Efficient Adoption of Products? Evidence from Randomized Variation in Sales Offers for Improved Cookstoves in Uganda,” with Theresa Beltramo, Garrick Blalock, and Carolyn Cotterman, 2013. http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/levine/papers/2013-April%2012%20What%20Impedes%20Efficient%20Product%20Adoption.pdf

o A briefing paper version: “New Sales Offers for Improved Cookstoves” Feb. 2011. http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/levine/papers/Summary%20of%20Fall%202010%20novel%20offer%20Feb%20%202011%20v6.doc

o A blog post: “Improving sales offers for improved stoves,” CEGA blog, January 24, 2013. http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/levine/papers/Summary%20of%20Fall%202010%20novel%20offer%20Feb%20%202011%20v6.doc

o An updated blog post is at “Try It, You’ll Like It: Testing Models for Sustainable Business in Asia and Africa,” May 5, 2014. http://businesssocialimpact.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/try-it-youll-like-it-testing-models-for-sustainable-business-in-asia-and-africa/

· “The Effect of Solar Ovens on Fuel Use, Emissions, and Health: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial,” with Theresa Beltramo. Journal of Development Effectiveness, 3, 2, June 2013: 178-207. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19439342.2013.775177

· “A rapid assessment randomized-controlled trial of improved cookstoves in rural Ghana” with Jason Burwen. Forthcoming, Energy for Sustainable Development. 16, 3, sept. 2012: 328-338. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2012.04.001

Safe water

• “The Disgust Box: A Novel Approach to Illustrate Water Contamination with Feces.” With Kaniz Jannat, Mahfuzur Rahman and Leanne Unicomb. Forthcoming, Global Health Promotion. 2016.

• “Disgust, Shame and Soapy Water: Tests of Novel Interventions to Promote Safe Water and Hygiene,” with Raymond P. Guiteras, Stephen P. Luby, Thomas H. Polley, Kaniz Khatun-e-Jannat and Leanne Unicomb. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. 3(2) May 2016 321-359. http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/684161

• “Nudging to Use: Achieving Safe Water Behaviors in Kenya and Bangladesh,” with Jill Luoto, Jeff Albert and Stephen Luby, Journal of Development Economics, 110, September 2014: 13–21. http://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0304387814000303

• “Learning to Dislike Safe Water Products: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effects of Direct and Peer Experience on Willingness to Pay” with Luoto, Jill, Minhaj Mahmud, Jeff Albert , Stephen Luby, Nusrat Najnin, Leanne Unicomb. Environmental Science & Technology 46.11 (2012): 6244-6251. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es2027967

• “What Point-of-Use Water Treatment Products do Consumers Use and Value? Evidence from the Urban Poor in Bangladesh,” with Jill Luoto, Nusrat Najnin, Minhaj Mahmud, Jeff Albert, M. Sirajul Islam, Stephen Luby, Leanne Unicomb. Plos ONE, Oct. 20, 2011. http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0026132

• “End-User Preferences for and Performance of Competing POU Water Treatments among the Rural Poor of Kenya,” with Jeff Albert and Jill Luoto. Environmental Science & Technology, 2010. (Winner of ES&T’s Editors’ Best Article award for 2010.) http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/levine/papers/Albert_et_al_EST_2010.pdf

Health insurance

On the effects of SKY health insurance:

• “Insuring Health or Insuring Wealth? An Experimental Evaluation of Health Insurance in Rural Cambodia,” with Rachel Polimeni and Ian Ramage. Journal of Development Economics. Vol. 119, March 2016: 1–15. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304387815001194

o Replication files: JDE_Insuring_health_replication.zip (Opens a Dropbox page; click “Open”.)

On selection into SKY health insurance:

• “Prices Matter: Comparing Two Tests of Adverse Selection in Health Insurance” with Rachel Polimeni, Working Paper 135-12, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, UC Berkeley, December 2012. http://escholarship.org/uc/item/135813k8

• Qualitative evidence: “Village Monograph Summary Report,” with Ian Ramage, Kim Hour Ramage, Eisel Mazard, Mark Kavenagh, and Gabriel Pictet, 2010.

• Descriptive statistics: “Who Buys SKY Health Insurance?,” with Rachel Polimeni, Ian Ramage, and Patrick Searles, 2011 http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/levine/papers/Who%20buys%20SKY%20May%202011.doc

• A policy brief: “Health Insurance for the Rural Poor: Evidence from Cambodia,” IFPRI Focus 17, Brief 10, 2009. http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/focus17_10.pdf

Methods in development engineering

• “Design for Impact: A Development Engineering Graduate Program at UC Berkeley,” with Alice M. Agogino and Martha A. Lesniewski, Development Engineering, forthcoming.

• “Design Thinking in Development Engineering,” with Martha A. Lesniewski and Alice M. Agogino, International Journal of Engineering Education, special issue 32, 3(B)), May/June 2016: 1396-1406. Working paper version: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Design-Thinking-in-Development-Engineering-Levine-Agogino/8ca6c89ac1d26b8015908232baae473670aedd56/pdf

• “The Pursuit of Balance in Sequential Randomized Trials,” with Raymond P. Guiteras and Thomas H. Polley. Development Engineering. 1 (2016) 12–25. doi:10.1016/j.deveng.2015.11.001

Some cheap advice

Cheap Advice for Dissertation Writers, the Job Market, and New Faculty