Working Paper
How the Design of Ranking Systems and Ability Affect Physician Effort with Katharina Huesmann, Christian Waibel, and Daniel Wiesen; Accepted at Management Science [Working Paper] [Policy Paper] While relative performance feedback in the form of rankings appears to be effective in improving healthcare outcomes, it may have either motivating or demotivating effects for individual physicians. Potential factors influencing such effects include a physician's level of ability and the design of the ranking system itself; however, there is limited understanding of these factors. Using a controlled lab-in-the-field experiment with practicing and future physicians as subjects (N=352), we systematically analyze effort within small teams under different ranking systems. Exogenously varying the number and position of the thresholds defining the ranking system, we observe that the addition of a threshold to create a new rank is motivating-i.e., increases effort-only among individuals capable of exceeding that threshold; the effort of other individuals may remain unchanged or even decrease. In particular, a highly granular ranking system with ranks spanning the entire range of possible outcomes maximizes overall physician effort: high thresholds serve to motivate high-ability individuals, while moderate and low thresholds provide opportunities for improvement to lower-ability individuals who cannot reach the high thresholds. Our results suggest that, to motivate their teams effectively, clinical leaders should provide rank feedback using a system under which physicians of all ability types can improve their rank through increased effort.
Soft Floor Auctions: Harnessing Regret to Improve Efficiency and Revenue with Dirk Bergemann, Kevin Breuer, Peter Cramton, Jack Hirsch and Axel Ockenfels [Working Paper] [AI-generated Podcast] A soft-floor auction asks bidders to accept an opening price to participate in an ascending auction. If no bidder accepts, lower bids are considered using first-price rules. Soft floors are common despite being irrelevant with standard assumptions. When bidders regret losing, soft-floor auctions are more efficient and profitable than standard optimal auctions. Revenue increases as bidders are inclined to accept the opening price to compete in a regret-free ascending auction. Efficiency is improved since having a soft floor allows for a lower hard reserve price, reducing the frequency of no sale. Theory and experiment confirm these motivations from practice.
Work in Progress
Second Opinions and Health Outcomes with Razi Faruk, Felix Mindl, and Daniel Wiesen Draft coming soon In most OECD countries, medical second opinion programs are widely introduced as a remedy to inefficiencies in health care markets. Empirically, however, only little is known about the efficacy of and selection into second opinion programs. Using second opinion and register panel data from one of the largest health insurers in Germany, we present causal evidence on the efficacy of second opinions on health care provision, costs, analgesic consumption and labor market participation. Particularly, we discuss whether second opinions lead to overtreatment and undertreatment and determine whether these effects are driven by increased compliance, i.e., outcomes if physicians agree or by correction, i.e., if physicians disagree.
Who Should Know What and Why? The (Biased) Supply of Accurate Beliefs
Implementation Stage
Information acquisition via TikTok: The effects on beliefs, attitudes and narratives
with Lara Marie Berger
Conceptualizing
Other Publications
Comparison of radiological interpretation made by veterinary radiologists and state-of-the-art commercial AI software for canine and feline radiographic studies [Paper] with Peter Cramton, Chavdar Chernev, Axel Ockenfels, and Tobias Schwarz; Frontiers in Veterinary Science; 2025
Research Interest
I research credence goods markets, focusing on health care, financial markets, and market design. My work applies modern statistical and experimental methods to understand mechanisms and design interventions that improve efficiency, performance, and outcomes. If you are interested to chat about your ideas in these fields, please feel free to reach out.