About
Interests
- Price Theory
- Information Economics
- Competition and Innovation
- Political Economy
Education
- PhD in Economics, University of Minnesota, 2020
- MA in Economics, University of Minnesota, 2017
- MSc in Economics of Public Policy, Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, 2014
- BA in Physics and Political Science, St. Olaf College, 2012
Peer-Reviewed Publications
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International Journal of Industrial Organization, 2026
Abstract
Recent research connects rising measured market power to other macroeconomic trends in the U.S., including decades-long declines in measures of 'business dynamism,' such as business entry and job reallocation. Intuitively, factors that raise market power may also reduce entry, and firms with more market power are less responsive to shocks. Such theories predict a negative correlation between markups and business dynamism. We use industry-level data to study long-run trends and annual patterns of markups and dynamism. Using multiple measures of each, we find no systematic industry-level negative correlation between changes in markups and changes in dynamism from the 1980s through the 2010s. In fact, we are more likely to observe the opposite relationship. -
Public Choice, 2022
Abstract
Politics, like any social system, involves selection mechanisms. This paper presents a model of politics as an evolutionary process. Our model yields three main results. First, the political process selects for efficient policies in the long run. We call that attribute asymptotic efficiency. Second, bargaining amongst interest groups bounds the inefficiencies that can exist in the short run. Potential inefficiency declines when organizing interest groups becomes less costly. Finally, policies that appear to be inefficient in a static analysis can be efficient once economists consider the dynamic nature of political decisions. We argue that viewing the political process as a selection mechanism allows political economists to use efficiency as a criterion for positive economic analysis. In our approach, applied political economy involves looking for relevant costs that make the policy efficient. However, our approach does not rob political economists of the ability to make meaningful normative statements; it only constrains the type of statements made. -
Public Choice, 2022
Abstract
COVID-19 vaccine mandates are in place or being debated across the world. Standard neoclassical economics argues that the marginal social benefit from vaccination exceeds the marginal private benefit; everyone vaccinated against a given infectious disease protects others by not transmitting the disease. Consequently, private levels of vaccination will be lower than the socially optimal levels due to free-riding, which requires mandates to overcome the problem. We argue that universal mandates based on free-riding are less compelling for COVID-19. We argue that because the virus can be transmitted even after receiving the vaccine, most of the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine are internalized: vaccinated individuals are protected from the worst effects of the disease. Therefore, any positive externality may be inframarginal or policy irrelevant. Even when all the benefits are not internalized by the individual, the externalities mainly are local, mostly affecting family and closely associated individuals, requiring local institutional (private and civil society) arrangements to boost vaccine rates, even in a global pandemic. Economists and politicians must justify such universal vaccine mandates on some basis other than free-riding. -
PLoS ONE, 2022
Abstract
Economists well understand that the work of Friedrich Hayek contains important theoretical insights. It is less often acknowledged that his work contains testable predictions about the nature of market processes. Vernon Smith termed the most important one the 'Hayek hypothesis': that gains from trade can be realized in the presence of diffuse, decentralized information, and in the absence of price-taking behavior and centralized market direction. Vernon Smith tested this prediction by surveying data on laboratory experimental markets and found strong support. We extend Smith's work first by showing how subsequent theoretical advances provide a theoretical foundation for the Hayek Hypothesis. We then test the hypothesis using recent field experimental market data. Using field experiments allows us to test several other predictions from Hayek, such that market experience increases the realized gains from trade. Generally speaking, we find support for Hayek's theories. -
Contemporary Economic Policy, 2022
Abstract
Modern Money Theory (MMT) has risen to prominence in popular policy debates within macroeconomics. MMT economists argue for creating a job guarantee program, which they argue would generate price stability. Using a benchmark model of time consistency supplemented with a job guarantee, we conclude that once policymakers' incentives are considered, the job guarantee does nothing to help stabilize prices. We compare this program to a competing proposal to maintain price stability and full employment, NGDP targeting. -
Journal of Macroeconomics, 2018
Abstract
A growing body of research highlights the correlation between strong, centralized states and economic growth. Given the important role that national defense has played in the development of the state, it seems as though this would imply some relationship between military expenditures and economic development. However, there is no consensus on the direction of the relationship between military expenditures and economic growth. In this paper, we propose a resolution to this puzzle. We argue that military technology is a limiting factor for wealth (and therefore capital) accumulation. Since wealth must be protected from plunder and/or destruction, the amount of wealth that can be accumulated is constrained by a society's ability to adequately defend it. We present a theoretical model consistent with this idea and perform a Monte Carlo experiment to determine the implications of this hypothesis for empirical work. We find that the long-run relationship between military expenditures and private production is positive. However, in sample sizes consistent with existing data, the relationship is ambiguous. As a result, we provide support for this idea by relying on historical examples consistent with our hypothesis. Finally, we consider the implications of our hypothesis for the development of state capacity. -
Journal of Economic Methodology, 2017
Abstract
The standard positive/normative divide fails to capture the way economists use 'optimal' taxation models. This paper argues that the better way to understand public economics is through a three-part division between positive, normative, and instrumental models. An instrumental model is about means and ends. Once this additional dimension is acknowledged, one can see that 'optimal' taxation models are closely connected to what are generally seen as purely positive models. I argue that economists have been using similar standards to assess 'optimal' taxation models as they use to assess positive models. Recent advances in optimal taxation theory have embraced the positive aspects of models, even about social welfare functions, something that is generally classified as a normative.
Working Papers
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Working Paper, 2026
Abstract
How do cost shocks pass through to prices in markets with price dispersion? Pass-through analysis typically assumes a single equilibrium price, but empirical studies consistently document substantial price variation, even for homogeneous products. This paper develops a tractable framework that decomposes the pass-through problem into two distinct tiers. The first is a competition layer where consumers' consideration sets determine equilibrium distributions of normalized margins. The second is a curvature layer where demand elasticity determines how these margins translate into prices and pass-through rates. The key theoretical innovation is showing that the strategic pricing game with arbitrary downward-sloping demand is order-isomorphic to a baseline unit-demand game once reformulated in terms of normalized effective margins. This decomposition yields closed-form pass-through formulas, robust bounds across demand specifications, and clear comparative statics linking market structure to incidence. -
R&R, Journal of Economic Theory, 2025
Abstract
What are the welfare implications of markup heterogeneity across firms? In standard monopolistic competition models, markup heterogeneity implies inefficiency even in the presence of free entry. We enrich the standard model so that preferences depend non-separably on off-market time and show how this changes the equilibrium and efficient distributions of productivity and markups. With constant elasticity of substitution across varieties, firm selection is inefficiently lax when off-market time and market goods are complements and inefficiently strict when they are substitutes. However, when off-market time and market goods are perfect complements, markups differ across firms and yet the equilibrium allocation is efficient. -
R&R, Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, 2025
Abstract
This paper examines the efficiency of markets where consumers privately acquire costly information about product fit before purchasing. In a departure from the inefficiency result found in the monopoly setting of Ravid, Roesler, and Szentes (2022), we show that duopolistic competition can restore ex post efficiency as information costs vanish. The core economic mechanism is that competition limits firms' ability to fully extract consumer surplus based on learned preferences (mitigating the hold-up problem), thereby preserving consumer incentives to acquire information that leads to efficient matching, even when information is arbitrarily cheap. We also find that the relationship between information costs and consumer welfare is non-monotonic: reducing frictions can harm consumers when information is already cheap, by intensifying the hold-up problem that competition only partially resolves. -
Resubmitted, Journal of Public Economic Theory, 2025
Abstract
Competitive markets feature minimal informational complexity; agents only need to know prices to implement an efficient allocation. However, the standard formulation of competitive equilibrium neglects the mechanism of price formation, treating prices as exogenous. Here, we study explicit price formation mechanisms: trade intermediated by market-makers and trade via search and bargaining. We find that as the number of types in the economy grows, the informational complexity of random search diverges to infinity relative to the competitive market. This divergence can be avoided if market makers intermediate trade. Thus, this analysis provides a novel rationale for organized markets if agents' capacity to manage informational complexity is bounded. -
R&R, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2025
Abstract
We formalize Israel Kirzner's entrepreneurial theory of market processes, showing how entrepreneurial alertness drives markets toward competitive equilibrium. Our model bridges Austrian and neoclassical approaches to market coordination. -
Working Paper, 2021
Abstract
I study games with incomplete markets where people must sink their investments before they can join a match. I focus on competitive matching markets where there is a public price to join any match. Despite the First Welfare Theorem, coordination failures can arise because of market incompleteness. But are coordination failures stable? I introduce a trembling-hand refinement and prove that—in a general class of models with general heterogeneity of types, costs of investments, and matching surpluses—coordination failures are not stable. My main theorem is a modified First Welfare Theorem: even with endogenous and incomplete markets, every perfect, competitive equilibrium is efficient. -
Working Paper, 2020
Abstract
Ronald Coase reasoned with economic models, and made inferences more generally, in an unorthodox manner. In 'The Problem of Social Cost', Coase draws a conclusion concerning the impact of transaction costs in the real world by looking to a model world in which transaction costs are conspicuously absent. Yet how Coase draws such an inference—from the model world to the actual world—remains opaque. The central goal of this paper is to make this method of inference crystal clear. We achieve this by offering a formal characterization of Coase's method of inference; we call this form of reasoning models as foils. We then show that other important thinkers from the history of economic thought also used models as foils, and we end by arguing that this method of inference can be used to fruitful ends by contemporary economists. -
Working Paper, 2020
Abstract
Firms have access to vast amounts of data on consumers, which allows them to strategically vary prices across consumers, i.e. price discriminate. To study the effects of this data on consumer welfare, I develop a Bertrand duopoly model where each consumer's valuation for each firm's good is uncertain. Instead of imposing that firms have access to specific data, I allow for general information structures; firms may vary in the quality and form of their data. Fixing the available data, due to the discontinuities in Bertrand competition, the unique equilibrium is only supported through price dispersion. I directly construct the unique equilibrium by harnessing features of each firm's residual demand curve. In equilibrium, each firm randomizes her price and generates a unit-elastic residual demand for the other firm. I then vary the available data and compare the welfare consequences. In the baseline model, contrary to common concerns regarding price discrimination derived from the monopoly case, under competition, completely public consumer data (perfect price discrimination) is optimal for consumers. -
Working Paper, 2020
Abstract
We model bargaining when parties can discover new opportunities during negotiation, extending standard bargaining theory to entrepreneurial settings. -
Working Paper, 2017
Abstract
How can competing political parties use persuasion to win elections? To study the role of competition in persuasion, I construct a voting model where two political parties compete by designing campaigns that release information about their party's candidate. By designing the whole campaign—as compared to designing a particular message—political parties are able to systematically change the beliefs of a Bayesian voter. Campaigns generate distributions of voter beliefs about the candidate's quality. Under competition, each party must worry about the other party and does not want to design a campaign that is easy to beat. In the unique equilibrium, both parties design campaigns that generate uniform distributions. The uniform distribution means that the voter is equally likely to have a range of beliefs about the candidate's quality after the campaign. It also means that the voter has maximum uncertainty about the candidates. -
Working Paper, 2016
Abstract
This article presents a new lens for studying entrepreneurship, what I call entrepreneurship as coordination. In certain situations, people have coordination problems. Buyers and sellers may want to go to a market, but only if the other person also goes. Instead of being stuck in a coordination problem, an entrepreneur is able to coordinate the actions of people within a market. Such coordination raises the gains from trade that buyers and sellers realize and allows the entrepreneur to earn a profit. To highlight the specific role of coordination, I use a simple model from the global games literature. I show how the entrepreneur can improve on coordination by sending a signal to each person in the market. In the limit, the entrepreneur's signal eliminates coordination failures. Finally, I show how my interpretation of entrepreneurship provides new insights by connecting different concepts of coordination used within economics.
Other Publications
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ICLE White Paper, 2025
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DePaul Law Review, 2025
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The War on Prices (Book Chapter), 2024
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FEDS Notes, 2024
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The Independent Review, 2023
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Exploring the Political Economy and Social Philosophy of James M. Buchanan (Book Chapter), 2018
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New York University Journal of Law and Liberty, 2017
Selected Popular Writing
- Trump Was Right About Price Controls, Until He Embraced Them - Washington Post, January 2026
- The only number that really matters - Vox, December 2025
- How to Spot a Monopoly - Works in Progress, December 2025
- You Can't Break the Laws of Economics - Wall Street Journal, August 2025
- How Trump should impose tariffs - Financial Times, November 2024
Other Popular Writing
- DeepSeek Shows There's No AI Monopoly - City Journal, February 2025
- Let's Learn From Meta's Antitrust Case What Not To Do With AI - Real Clear Markets, November 2025
- Don't Break Up the NFL's Sunday Ticket Package - City Journal, July 2025
- Tariffs Didn't Drive America's Nineteenth-Century Growth. They Won't Today, Either - City Journal, April 2025
- Who's to Blame for High Egg Prices? Ask the Economists - Barron's, March 2025
- The Catch-22 of Big Tech Antitrust - The Dispatch, December 2024
- Ranking the Big Tech Monopolization Cases in the Wake of the Google Search Decision - Yale Journal on Regulation, September 2024
- Perilous Remedies - City Journal, August 2024
- When Protection Becomes Overreach - City Journal, May 2024
- Net neutrality is an idea that should have stayed dead - Boston Globe, May 2024
- Ranking the Big Tech Monopolization Cases: Some Economists' Perspectives - Yale Journal on Regulation, April 2024
- Overzealous antitrust may prove anti-consumer - Star Tribune, July 2023
- Leave the Golf Leagues Alone - City Journal, June 2023
- The anti-growth CMA is threatening British tech's success story - The Telegraph (UK), April 2023
- Separating Facts from Fear in Merger Enforcement - National Review Online, April 2023
- FTC Proposal Jumps The Gun On Banning Noncompetes - Law360, January 2023
- The FTC's Misguided Case Against Meta - The Dispatch, December 2022
- FTC Claims Sweeping Powers against 'Unfair' Competition - National Review Online, December 2022
- Business As Usual for Antitrust - City Journal, November 2022
- FTC Commissioner Pushing for Higher Prices - National Review Online, October 2022
- The FTC works up a sweat over virtual-reality fitness market - The Hill, August 2022
- Confusion Can Make for Good Politics, but Bad Economics - Inside Sources, July 2022
- A new bill for Big Tech, with the same flaws - Star Tribune, June 2022
- Antitrust Is Easy (When You Think You Know All the Answers) - National Review Online, June 2022
- Lina Khan won't solve inflation - The Hill, February 2022
- The American Innovation and Choice Online Act Would Foster Neither Innovation Nor Choice - The Dispatch, February 2022
- Corporate Greed Isn't Driving Inflation - City Journal, January 2022
- A Big Tech crackdown could just make the Internet worse - Boston Globe, November 2021
- Behavioral Economics Is Fine. Just Keep It Away from Our Kids - National Review Online, October 2021
- Antitrust Is Happily Dying Before Our Eyes, and Judges Are the Reason - Real Clear Markets, September 2021
- The FTC Is Driving Away Good Economists In Favor Of Political Henchmen - Tech Dirt, July 2021
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