Stephan Meier

Biography

Stephan Meier is a Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Zurich, was previously a senior economist at the Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision-Making at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and taught courses on strategic interactions and economic policy at Harvard University and the University of Zurich. His research interest is in behavioral strategy. He investigates the impact of psychology and economics on human decision-making and its implications for public policy and firms' strategy. Current research topics include how non-selfish behavior affect organizations or the effect of borrower's decision-making on financial institutions' strategy. His work has been published in the leading academic journals including the American Economic Review and Management Science, and has been profiled by the press such as The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Neue Zuercher Zeitung.

Research

Journal articles

Intentions for Doing Good Matter for Doing Well: The (Negative) Signaling Value of Prosocial Incentives In The Economic Journal (forthcoming)
Coauthor(s): Lea Cassar, Stephan Meier

Macroeconomic Conditions When Young Shape Job Preferences for Life In Review of Economics and Statistics (forthcoming)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Lea Cassar, Maria Cotofan, Robert Dur

In the Mood to Consume: Effect of Sunshine on Credit Card Spending In Journal of Banking & Finance (2020)
Coauthor(s): Sumit Agarwal, Souphala Chomsisengphet, Stephan Meier, Xin Zou

Does Poverty Negate the Impact of Social Norms on Cheating? In Games and Economic Behavior (2020)
Coauthor(s): Suparee Boonmanunt, Agne Kajackaite, Stephan Meier

Culture of Trust and Division of Labor in Non-Hierarchical Teams In Strategic Management Journal (2019)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Matt Stephenson, Patryk Perkowski

What's the Catch? Suspicion in Bank Motives and Sluggish Refinancing In The Review of Financial Studies (2019)
Coauthor(s): Eric Johnson, Stephan Meier, Olivier Toubia

Nonmonetary Incentives and the Implications of Work as a Source of Meaning In Journal of Economic Perspectives (2018)
Coauthor(s): Lea Cassar, Stephan Meier

Saving More in Groups: Field Experimental Evidence from Chile In Journal of Development Economics (2018)
Coauthor(s): Felipe Kast, Stephan Meier, Dina Pomeranz

Rank reversal aversion inhibits redistribution across societies In Nature Human Behavior (2017)
Coauthor(s): Wenwen Xie, Benjamin Ho, Stephan Meier, Xinyue Zhou

Field Experiments in Strategy Research In Strategic Management Journal (2016)
Coauthor(s): Aaron Chatterji, Michael Findley, Nathan Jensen, Stephan Meier, Daniel Nielson

Poverty and Economic Decision-Making: Evidence from Changes in Financial Resources at Payday In American Economic Review (2016)
Coauthor(s): Leandro Carvalho, Stephan Meier, Stephanie Wang

Trust and in-group favoritism in a culture of crime In Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (2016)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Lamar Pierce, Antonino Vaccaro, Barbara La Cara

Temporal Stability of Time Preferences In Review of Economics and Statistics (2015)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Charles Sprenger

Incentives and Group Identity In Games and Economic Behavior (2014)
Coauthor(s): Paolo Masella, Stephan Meier, Philipp Zahn

Learning from (Failed) Replications: Cognitive Load Manipulations and Charitable Giving In Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (2014)
Coauthor(s): Judd Kessler, Stephan Meier

Numerical Ability Predicts Mortgage Default In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2013)
Coauthor(s): Kristopher Gerardi, Lorenz Goette, Stephan Meier

Discounting Financial Literacy: Time Preferences and Participation in Financial Education Programs In Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2013)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Charles Sprenger

Do Lab Experiments Misrepresent Social Preferences? The Case of Self-selected Student Samples In Journal of the European Economic Association (2013)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Armin Falk, Christian Zehnder

Competition Between Organizational Groups: Its Impact on Altruistic and Anti-Social Motivations In Management Science (2012)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Lorenz Goette, David Huffman, Matthias Sutter

The Impact of Social Ties on Group Interactions: Evidence from Minimal Groups and Randomly Assigned Real Groups In American Economic Journal: Microeconomics (2012)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Lorenz Goette, David Huffman

Time Discounting Predicts Creditworthiness In Psychological Science (2012)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Charles Sprenger

Can Integration Tame Conflicts? In Science (2011)
Coauthor(s): Lorenz Goette, Stephan Meier

When and Why Incentives (Don''t) Work to Modify Behavior In Journal of Economic Perspectives (2011)
Coauthor(s): Uri Gneezy, Stephan Meier, Pedro Rey-Biel

Another Hidden Cost of Incentives: The Detrimental Effect on Norm Enforcement In Management Science (2010)
Coauthor(s): Andreas Fuster, Stephan Meier

Present-Biased Preferences and Credit Card Borrowing In American Economic Journal (2010)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Charles Sprenger

Why Does Unemployment Hurt the Employed? Evidence from the Life Satisfaction Gap Between the Public and the Private Sector In Journal of Human Resources (2010)
Coauthor(s): Simon Luechinger, Stephan Meier, Alois Stutzer

Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially In American Economic Review (2009)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Dan Ariely, Anat Bracha

Bureaucratic Rents and Life Satisfaction In Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization (2008)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Simon Luchinger, Alois Stutzer

Do people behave in experiments as in the field?—evidence from donations In Experimental Economics (2008)
Coauthor(s): Matthias Benz, Stephan Meier

Do Subsidies Increase Charitable Giving in the Long Run? Matching Donations in a Field Experiment In Journal of the European Economic Association (2007)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier

The Impact of Group Membership on Cooperation and Norm Enforcement: Evidence Using Random Assignment to Real Social Groups In American Economic Review (2006)
Coauthor(s): Lorenz Goette, David Huffman, Stephan Meier

Social Comparison and Pro-social Behavior: Testing 'Conditional Cooperation' in a Field Experiment In American Economic Review (2004)
Coauthor(s): Bruno S. Frey, Stephan Meier

Pro-social behavior in a natural setting In Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (2004)
Coauthor(s): Bruno Frey, Stephan Meier

Are Political Economists Selfish or Indoctrinated? In Economic Inquiry (2003)
Coauthor(s): Bruno S. Frey, Stephan Meier

Chapters

A Survey of Economic Theories and Field Evidence on Pro-Social Behavior In Economics and Psychology: A Promising New Cross-Disciplinary Field (2007)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier

Working papers

License to Fire? Unemployment Insurance and Moral Cost of Layoffs In IZA DP No. 13497 (2020)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Daniel Keum

Gender Differences in Preferences for Meaning at Work (2020)
Coauthor(s): Vanessa Burbano, Stephan Meier, Nicolas Padilla

The Effect of Financial Constraints on Parochial Cooperation and Norm Enforcement (2020)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Suparee Boonmanunt

Procrastination in the Field: Evidence from Tax Filing (2017)
Coauthor(s): Seung-Keun Martinez, Stephan Meier, Charles Sprenger

Non-Monetary Incentives and the Quest for Work Meaning (2016)
Coauthor(s): Lea Cassar, Stephan Meier

Money Left on the Kitchen Table: Exploring Sluggish Mortgage Refinancing Using Administrative Data, Surveys, and Field Experiments (2015)
Coauthor(s): Eric Johnson, Stephan Meier, Olivier Toubia

Culture of Trust and Division of Labor (2015)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Matthew Stephenson

No News Is Good News: CSR Strategy and Newspaper Coverage of Negative Firm Events (2012)
Coauthor(s): Jiao Luo, Stephan Meier, Felix Oberholzer-Gee

Under-Savers Anonymous: Evidence on Self-Help Groups and Peer Pressure as a Savings Commitment Device (2011)
Coauthor(s): Felipe Kast, Stephan Meier, Dina Pomeranz

Case studies

Competitive Dynamics and Business Strategy (2010)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier

Competitive Dynamics and Business Strategy (2010)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier

Strategy Formulation and Competitive Advantage (2009)
Coauthor(s): Stephan Meier, Bruce Kogut, Felix Oberholzer-Gee

Ideas and Insights

Motivating a Team Takes More Than Money (2020)

What Does It Mean to Have a Meaningful Job? (2019)

The Catch-22 of CSR (2018)

Awards And Honors

Rudolph Schoenheimer Faculty Fund

2012 - 2013

Excellence in Refereeing Award

2012 American Economic Review

Dean''s Award for Teaching Excellence in a Core Course

2010 Columbia Business School

Excellence in Refereeing Award

American Economic Review, 2007-2008

Research scholarship

Swiss National Science Foundation 10/2004 - 9/2005

Award of the Department of Economics for Best Master Thesis

Summer 2000 University of Zurich