Endogenous growth theory has long recognized innovation as one of the key drivers of growth. Understanding what factors encourage or discourage innovative activities and how, in turn, these affect our communities is therefore crucial to inspire policies that promote inclusive growth. This dissertation tries to broaden our comprehension of the...
I study how electricity generation firms exert market power, raising price above marginal cost. Typical studies of market power in electricity markets focus on how firms sustain markups in the short-run energy market. I explore other channels electricity generation firms use to strategically maximize profits. First, I analyze strategic investments...
This dissertation studies the forces that drive the allocation of patients to hospitals in the United States. Even though it seems there is some market discipline in the hospital industry, we observe that many patients go to hospitals far from the quality frontier and we still do not have a...
The first two chapters of my thesis are related to health economics, and explore how individual decisions affecting health can be impacted by different factors, including by government policy. The third chapter of my thesis (coauthored with Heyu Xiong) focuses on public economics in the Chinese context.
>In the first...
This dissertation consists of two papers united by a common element: they both study the behavior of heterogeneous agents across the business cycle.
In Chapter 1, I consider: what is the link between the drop in consumer credit during the Great Recession and increased unemployment? I build a heterogeneous household...
This dissertation looks at the consequences of three different government regulatory policies---the nondistribution constraint (which prohibits managers of nonprofit organizations from distributing profits generated by the nonprofit organization to themselves), the 100/0, 85/15, and 90/10 rules (which restrict the fraction of revenue for-profit colleges and universities can receive from Title...
While it is the ongoing growth in healthcare spending that has been making headlines, improving and maintaining healthcare quality is a critical goal of healthcare policy. In this dissertation I answer three questions relating to healthcare quality: does physician-hospital financial integration improves healthcare quality; how physician-hospital financial integration improves healthcare...
This dissertation analyzes the role of price advertising in the retail grocery setting, first exploring how consumers use price advertising in their shopping location decisions, and then considering ways in which retailers use price advertising to maximize store traffic and profits, given consumer use of information. Chapter 2 provides a...
In the first part of the dissertation, I investigate the nature of retail coupons, a popular tool for non-price competition. The widely expressed view that coupons are primarily a tool to allow price discrimination has received mixed empirical supports. I depart from the static framework of the price discrimination theory...