Publications
Rules for the Rulemakers: Asymmetric Information and the Political Economy of Benefit-Cost Analysis
with David Besanko and Clair Yang
Journal of Regulatory Economics 66(1):1–51, 2024
with David Besanko and Clair Yang
Journal of Regulatory Economics 66(1):1–51, 2024
This paper presents a model of an executive administration that decides whether to mandate benefit-cost analysis (BCA) of newly proposed regulations. A regulator has private information about the social benefit of a new rule but may differ from the executive’s preferences for regulation. BCA, which provides a noisy signal of the rule’s social benefit, is most valuable when the executive is regulation neutral. Extremely regulation-averse administrations may be harmed by BCA unless they can bias it. Our results are consistent with use of BCA by U.S. presidential administrations since Reagan.
Working papers
Firm Productivity and Learning with Digital Technologies: Evidence from Cloud Computing
with James Brand, Mert Demirer, and Connor Finucane
with James Brand, Mert Demirer, and Connor Finucane
Digital technologies have transformed firm production across all sectors. In this paper, we document new facts about firms’ productivity with emerging technologies by studying how efficiently they use cloud computing. Leveraging high-frequency CPU utilization data from nearly 100,000 firms, we find large and persistent dispersion in firms' cloud productivity. Productivity, however, is highly dynamic in this setting: firms improve their cloud productivity by 33% in the first year after adoption, and reach a stable level only after four years, indicating a long adjustment period to learn the technology. While faster learning among initially less efficient firms reduces productivity dispersion by 60% over time, substantial heterogeneity remains even after 10 years. Finally, productivity improvements occur primarily within individual divisions of a firm, with minimal knowledge transfer across divisions.
Works in progress
A Large Scale Evaluation of Merger Simulations
with Vivek Bhattacharya, Gastón Illanes, José D. Salas, and David Stillerman
Information Sharing versus Collusion: Evidence from Poultry Processing
Common Pricing Algorithms and Information Design
Antitrust Spillovers: Evidence from Meatpacking, 1917–1921
with Vivek Bhattacharya, Gastón Illanes, José D. Salas, and David Stillerman
Information Sharing versus Collusion: Evidence from Poultry Processing
Common Pricing Algorithms and Information Design
Antitrust Spillovers: Evidence from Meatpacking, 1917–1921