Working Papers

The welfare effects of vertical integration are ambiguous. Cost efficiencies and the elimination of double marginalization may offset increases in market power and incentives to raise rivals’ costs. To study the effects of vertical…

We discuss the relevance of the recent Machine Learning (ML) literature for economics and econometrics. First we discuss the differences in goals, methods and settings between the ML literature and the traditional econometrics and statistics…

We present a new perspective on the Synthetic Control (SC) method as a weighted least squares regression estimator with time fixed effects and unit weights. This perspective suggests a generalization with two way (both unit and time) fixed…

We introduce a novel measure of segregation, experienced isolation, that captures individuals’ exposure to diverse others in the places they visit over the course of their days. Using novel Global Positioning System (GPS) data collected…

Do differences in health literacy contribute to the widely documented health-income gradient? In the context of Sweden, we document a strong relationship between exposure to health-related expertise — captured by the presence of a health…

I study a dynamic model in which a decision-maker acquires information about the payoffs of different alternatives prior to making her decision. The key feature of the model is the flexibility of information: the decision-maker can choose any…

We build a dynamic model to link two empirical patterns: the negative failure probability-return relation (Campbell, Hilscher, and Szilagyi, JF, 2008) and the positive distress risk premium-return relation (Friewald, Wagner, and Zechner, JF, 2014…

Contextual bandit algorithms are sensitive to the estimation method of the outcome model as well as the exploration method used, particularly in the presence of rich heterogeneity or complex outcome models, which can lead to difficult…

When macroeconomic tools fail to respond to wealth inequality optimally, regulators can still seek to mitigate inequality within individual markets. A social planner with distributional preferences might distort allocative efficiency to achieve a…

We study the causes of “nutritional inequality”: why the wealthy eat more healthfully than the poor in the United States. Exploiting supermarket entry, household moves to healthier neighborhoods, and purchasing patterns among households with…

In many settings, a decision-maker wishes to learn a rule, or policy, that maps from observable characteristics of an individual to an action. Examples include selecting offers, prices, advertisements, or emails to send to consumers, as well as…

Older Americans, even those who are long retired, have strong willingness to work, especially in jobs with flexible schedules. For many, labor force participation near or after normal retirement age is limited more by a lack of acceptable job…

As technology platforms have created new markets and new ways of acquiring information, economists have come to play an increasingly central role in tech companies – tackling problems such as platform design, strategy, pricing, and policy. Over…

Students with identical valuations for public schools but unequal outside options have different opportunity costs of revealing their preferences. Consequently, manipulable mechanisms need not resolve conflicting preferences in a Pareto-improving…

This study reports on the current state-of-affairs in the funding of entrepreneurship and innovations in China and provides a broad survey of academic findings on the subject. We discuss the implications of these findings for public policies…

Consider an extensive-form mechanism, run by an auctioneer who communicates sequentially and privately with agents. Suppose the auctioneer can deviate from the rules provided that no single agent detects the deviation. A mechanism is credible if…

Energy storage will be key to overcoming the intermittency and variability of renewable energy sources, like wind and solar power. This paper proposes a cost metric for measuring the cost of energy storage and for identifying optimally sized…

In many important machine learning applications, the training distribution used to learn a probabilistic classifier differs from the testing distribution on which the classifier will be used to make predictions. Traditional methods correct the…

The growth of the “gig” economy generates worker flexibility that, some have speculated, will favor women. We explore one facet of the gig economy by examining labor supply choices and earnings among more than a million rideshare drivers on Uber…

Individuals face significant late-in-life risks, including needing long-term care (LTC). Yet, they hold little long-term care insurance (LTCI). Using both “strategic survey questions,” which identify preferences, and stated demand questions, this…