About me

I am a Senior Economist at Cornerstone Research, an Assistant Professor (on leave) at the Department of Economics at University College London and a Research Affiliate at CEPR. I specialize in Industrial Organization and Economic Theory. I am interested in a wide range of topics such as optimal pricing, consumer privacy, and network. Here is my .

Publications

• The Ratchet Effect: A Learning Perspective,
  joint with V. Bhaskar
  Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 214, December 2023
  [pdf]
  Abstract

  We examine the ratchet effect under moral hazard and symmetric learning by worker and firm about new technology. Shirking increases the worker’s future payoffs, since the firm overestimates job difficulty. High-powered incentives to deter shirking induce the agent to over-work, since he can quit if the firm thinks the job is too easy. With continuous effort choices, no deterministic interior effort is implementable. We provide conditions under which randomized effort is implementable, so that a profit-maximizing distribution over efforts exists.

• Consumer Privacy and Serial Monopoly,
  joint with V. Bhaskar
  RAND Journal of Economics, Vol. 52, No. 4, Winter 2021
  [pdf, arXiv]
  Abstract

  We examine the implications of consumer privacy when preferences today depend upon past consumption choices, and consumers shop from different sellers in each period. Although consumers are ex ante identical, their initial consumption choices cannot be deterministic. Thus ex post heterogeneity in preferences arises endogenously. Consumer privacy improves social welfare, consumer surplus and the profits of the second-period seller, while reducing the profits of the first period seller, relative to the situation where consumption choices are observed by the later seller.

• Competition and Networks of Collaboration,
  Theoretical Economics, Vol. 13, Issue 3, September 2018
  [pdf, online appendix, early version]
  Abstract

  I develop a model of collaboration between tournament participants in which agents collaborate in pairs, and an endogenous structure of collaboration is represented by a weighted network. The agents are forward-looking and capable of coordination; they value collaboration with others and higher tournament rankings. I use von Neumann-Morgenstern stable sets as a solution. I find stable networks in which agents collaborate only within exclusive groups. Both an absence of intergroup collaboration and excessive intragroup collaboration lead to inefficiency. I provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the stability of efficient outcomes in winner-takes-all tournaments. I show that the use of transfers does not repair efficiency.

• A Quantitative Analysis of the Used Car Market,
  joint with Alessandro Gavazza and Alessandro Lizzeri,
  American Economic Review, Vol. 104, Issue 11, November 2014
  [pdf]
  Abstract

  Quantitatively, we investigate the allocative and welfare effects of secondary markets for cars. An important source of gains from trade in these markets is the heterogeneity in the willingness to pay for higher-quality (newer) goods, but transaction costs are an impediment to instantaneous trade. Calibration of the model successfully matches several aggregate features of the U.S. and French used-car markets. Counterfactual analyses show that transaction costs have a large effect on volume of trade, allocations, and the primary market. Aggregate effects on consumer surplus and welfare are relatively small, but the effect on lower-valuation households can be large.

• Nonlinear Pricing of Storable Goods,
  joint with Igal Hendel and Alessandro Lizzeri,
  AEJ: Microeconomics, Vol. 6, Issue 3, August 2014,
  ● 2016 AEJ Best Paper Award
  [pdf, online appendix]
  Abstract

  This paper develops a model of nonlinear pricing of storable goods. We show that storability imposes novel constraints on a monopolist's ability to extract surplus. We then show that the attempt to relax these constraints can generate cyclical patterns in pricing and sales, even when consumers are homogeneous. Thus, the model provides a novel explanation for sales that does not rely on discriminating heterogeneous consumers. Enriching the model to allow for buyer heterogeneity in storage technology, delivers the prediction that larger bundles are more likely to be on sale.

Work in progress

• Circles of Trust: Rival Information in Social Networks,
  joint with Petra Persson ⓡ Samuel Lee
  [pdf, supp. materials]
  Abstract

  We analyze the diffusion of rival information in a social network. In our model, rational agents can share information sequentially, unconstrained by an exogenous protocol or timing. We show how to compute the set of eventually informed agents for any network, and show that it is essentially unique under altruistic preferences. The relationship between network structure and information diffusion is complex because the former shapes both the charity and confidentiality of potential senders and receivers.

• Manipulative consumers,
  joint with Michael Richter
  [updated version:pdf]
  Abstract

  We study optimal monopoly pricing with evasive consumers. The monopolist uses consumer data to price its products and data-conscious consumers manipulate their data at a cost. We derive the monopolist’s gains from using data and characterize the optimal investigation strategy. When there is a large number of observable consumer attributes, we find that the value of data is all-or-nothing: either the data identifies a sizeable number of high-type consumers allowing the monopolist to extract the full surplus from them or it is entirely worthless. We establish a precise condition which delineates when data is valuable, and when it is not.

• Consumer storage confronts monopoly power,
  joint with V. Bhaskar
  [NEW! pdf]
  Abstract

  We study the steady state behavior of the market for a storable good where firms have monopoly power instantaneously, but compete against future sellers. Consumers have identical preferences, but differ in their willingness to pay due to differential inventory holdings. In a steady state, the optimal nonlinear tariffs chosen by the firms induce the constant distribution of private inventories. Identical consumers behave differently, shop infrequently and consume in a cyclical manner. The ability to store goods gives rise to inefficiency, but also allows consumers to retain some surplus.

Teaching

• Game Theory [ online lectures]

• Urban Economics

• Microeconomics