213 research outputs found
Empirical Industrial Organization: A Progress Report
No full textThe field of Industrial Organization has made dramatic advances over the last few decades in developing empirical methods for analyzing imperfect competition and the organization of markets. We describe the motivation for these developments and some of the successes. We also discuss the relative emphasis that applied work in the field has placed on economic theory relative to statistical research design, and the possibility that a focus on methodological innovation has crowded out applications. We offer some suggestions about how the field may progress in coming years.
Selection in Insurance Markets: Theory and Empirics in Pictures
No full textWe present a graphical framework for analyzing both theoretical and empirical work on selection in insurance markets. We begin by using this framework to review the “textbook” adverse selection environment and its implications for insurance allocation, social welfare, and public policy. We then discuss several important extensions to this classical treatment that are necessitated by important real world features of insurance markets and which can be easily incorporated in the basic framework. Finally, we use the same graphical approach to discuss the intuition behind recently developed empirical methods for testing for the existence of selection and examining its welfare consequences. We conclude by discussing some important issues that are not well-handled by this framework and which, perhaps not unrelatedly, have been little addressed by the existing empirical work.
The rise of mobile devices has done little to change how we shop online, at least for now
No full textIn recent years, smartphones have changed the way that we interact with the web – and each other. But have they changed the way that we shop online? In a recent study of internet and mobile eBay transactions, Liran Einav, John Levin, Igor Popov and Neel Sundaresan, find that mobile adopters tended to be heavy eBay users, and tended to buy more using their mobiles, while their non-mobile purchases stayed largely the same. They also find that their mobile shopping behaviors in terms of prices and products are little different to those on eBay’s internet site
Empirical analyses of selection and welfare in insurance markets: a self-indulgent survey
No full textAbstract
This review article surveys work that has been done using an empirical framework for analyzing selection in insurance markets developed by Einav et al. (Einav et al., Quarterly Journal of Economics 125:877–921, 2010a). We briefly review that framework, and then describe a number of empirical applications that researchers have undertaken across an array of settings in both insurance and credit markets. We also discuss some of the useful extensions to the original framework that others have made and applied. The review is intended to be useful for scholars who may want to apply the framework in their own work on insurance, credit, or other selection markets
Flat tax reforms in the U.S.: A boon for the income poor
No full textIn this article we quantify the aggregate, distributional and welfare consequences of
two revenue neutral flat-tax reforms using a model economy that replicates the U.S.
distributions of earnings, income and wealth in very much detail. We find that the less
progressive reform brings about a 2.4 percent increase in steady-state output and a
more unequal distribution of after-tax income. In contrast, the more progressive reform brings about a -2.6 percent reduction in steady-state output and a distribution of aftertax income that is more egalitarian. We also find that in the less progressive flat-tax economy aggregate welfare falls by -0.17 percent of consumption, and in the more
progressive flat-tax economy it increases by 0.45 percent of consumption. In both flattax
reforms the income poor pay less income taxes and obtain sizeable welfare gains
Replication data for: Long-Term Care Hospitals: A Case Study in Waste
No full textEinav, L., Finkelstein, A., and Mahoney, N., (2023). “Long-Term Care Hospitals: A Case Study in Waste.” Review of Economics and Statistics 105:4, 745–765
The First of the Month Effect: Consumer Behavior and Store Responses
No full textPrevious research has used survey and diary data to carefully document that Food Stamp recipients decrease their expenditures and consumption of food throughout the benefit month, the beginning of which is defined by the date on which benefits are distributed. The reliance on survey and diary data has meant that researchers could not test two rational hypotheses for why food consumption cycles. Using detailed grocery store scanner data we ask 1) whether cycling is due to a desire for variation in foods consumed that leads to substitution across product quality within the month and 2) whether cycling is driven by countercyclical pricing by grocery retailers. We find support for neither of these hypotheses. We find that the decrease in food expenditures is largely driven by reductions in food quantity, not quality, and that prices for foods purchased by benefit households vary pro-cyclically with demand implying that benefit households could save money by delaying their food purchases until later in the month. The price effects are small relative to demand changes and relative to impacts found for other subsidy programs such as EITC, suggesting that most of the benefits accrue to the intended recipients particularly in product categories and stores where benefit recipients represent a small fraction of overall demand. We conclude by concurring with previous literature that food cycling behavior is most likely due to short-run impatience.
Markets for Reputation: Evidence on Quality and Quantity in Academe
No full textWe develop a theory of the market for individual reputation, an indicator of regard by one’s peers and others. The central questions are: 1) Does the quantity of exposures raise reputation independent of their quality? and 2) Assuming that overall quality matters for reputation, does the quality of an individual’s most important exposure have an extra effect on reputation? Using evidence for academic economists, we find that, conditional on its impact, the quantity of output has no or even a negative effect on each of a number of proxies for reputation, and very little evidence that a scholar’s most influential work provides any extra enhancement of reputation. Quality ranking matters more than absolute quality. Data on mobility and salaries show, on the contrary, substantial positive effects of quantity, independent of quality. We test various explanations for the differences between the determinants of reputation and salary.
Replication Data for: 'Voluntary Regulation: Evidence from Medicare Payment Reform'
No full textThe programs replicate tables and figures from "Voluntary Regulation: Evidence from Medicare Payment Reform", by Einav, Finkelstein, Ji, and Mahoney. Please see the readme file for additional details
Replication data for: Moral Hazard in Health Insurance: Do Dynamic Incentives Matter?
No full textAron-Dine, Aviva, Einay, Liran, Finkelstein, Amy, and Cullen, Mark, (2015) "Moral Hazard in Health Insurance: Do Dynamic Incentives Matter?" Review of Economics and Statistics 97:4, 725-742
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