Berkeley Haas faculty are shaping how the world is governed, according to a database of millions of policy documents.
An analysis of the massive database compiled by the startup Overton and reported by the Financial Times found that two of the top 10 business school research papers that have had the greatest global impact on policy are by Berkeley Haas finance professors Matteo Benetton (#2 on the list) and Ulrike Malmendier (#3 on the list).
“On subjects ranging from grocery prices to interest rate policy, these papers have altered understanding of their fields and influenced policy,” writes Bethan Staton of the Financial Times. “Many of the most effective papers in the list begin by identifying a clear gap in knowledge that is leading to confusion about what actions companies or governments should take.”
Overton describes itself as “the world’s largest searchable index of policy documents, guidelines, think tank publications and working papers.” The database includes over 13 million documents compiled from 188 countries. The analysis aimed to bridge the gap between research and practice by showing real-world policy impact.
The Berkeley Haas papers:
Targeted monetary policy and bank lending behavior
This paper by Berkeley Haas Assistant Professor Matteo Benetton and Davide Fantino of the Bank of Italy was published in the Journal of Financial Economics in 2021 and proved to be prescient. It was ranked #2 on the list of papers with the greatest impact.
The focus was “unconventional policy tools” adopted by central banks to stimulate the economy in response to the 2008 financial crisis—specifically, the European Center Bank’s targeted TLTRO-I program that decreased loan interest rates and increased loan amounts.
The program proved more effective than prior, less-targeted stimulus efforts. The key improvement was tying lending allocations to banks’ existing loan portfolios, which helped ensure that the funds were used for their intended purpose. The researchers found that the money actually went to business lending rather than being used by banks to buy government bonds. Ultimately, the targeted approach was more effective at increasing the credit supply.
The research holds lessons for untargeted government efforts, such as the pandemic-era Paycheck Protection Program in the U.S., that aim to get funds to people or businesses quickly rather than directing them more strategically.
“Our results suggest that it is important for policymakers to consider the interactions between monetary and competition policies, especially following the recent changes in the competitive landscape due to consolidations, branch closures, and the rise of shadow banks,” Benetton says.
“There is a difficult trade-off between targeting funds and providing them fast. Allocating credit is a very complex job.”
Exposure to Grocery Prices and Inflation Expectations
This paper by Berkeley Haas Professor Ulrike Malmendier with Francesco D’Acunto of Boston College, Juan Ospina of Banco de la República de Colombia, and Michael Weber of the University of Chicago was published in the Journal of Political Economy in May 2021. It was ranked #3 on the list of papers with the greatest impact.
The researchers found that the price of groceries has an outsize influence on people’s overall views of inflation. Consumers tend to link their inflation expectations to price increases in the staples they purchase regularly, such as milk and bread—especially when they see big increases. Those grocery price increases have a bigger impact on consumers’ inflation views than increases in the price of goods on which spend a greater portion of their household budgets. High grocery prices were a hot topic during the 2024 presidential campaign, with President-elect Donald Trump—and many consumers—blaming the Biden administration for high inflation.