were hiked to provide disincentive to buy cigarettes. A December 2007 paper studies corruption in obtaining driving licenses in Delhi. On the average, individuals pay about twice the official amount to obtain a license and very few take the legally required driving test, resulting in many unqualified but licensed drivers. The magnitude of distortions in the allocation of licenses increases with citizens' willing to pay for licenses. The results support the view that corruption does not only transfer from citizens to bureaucrats but also distorts allocation. The paper also shows that partial anti-corruption measures have only a limited impact because players in this system adapt to the new environment. Specifically, a ban on agents at one regional transport office is associated with a high percentage of unqualified drivers overcoming the residency requirement and obtaining licenses at other license offices. The 2004 study used a simple technique to measure labor market discrimination by switching the names at the top of resumes. Controlling for other factors, Mullainathan and his co-authors found that applications with white sounding names attained 50% more callbacks. The experiment provides convincing evidence of implicit discrimination in hiring practices. In collaboration with Marianne Bertrand, Mullainathan published a series of papers scrutinizing executive compensation. The studies explain that increasing financial reward for CEO performance is a more complicated matter than incentive. Factors may enable CEOs to gain from luck, manipulating committees (the Skimming Model) and decreased sector competition. Selected bibliography Books Journal articles Papers References External links Harvard Faculty Web Page Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much The Mistake Busy People Make (Time) The Mental Strain of Making Do With Less (The New York Times) When a Co-Pay Gets in the Way of Health (The New York Times) Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function List of Working Papers Online TEDIndia Talk 1970s births Living people Neuroeconomists in Psychiatry Cornell University alumni Harvard University alumni MacArthur Fellows Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty Harvard University faculty Behavioral economists American people of Indian Tamil descent Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the Econometric Society Center for Global Development Indian economists Indian American