Publications
“Triplet Embeddings for Demand Estimation” with Lorenzo Magnolfi and Alan Sorensen. American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 17(1), p. 282-307. 2025.
We propose a method to augment conventional demand estimation approaches with crowd-sourced data on the product space. Our method obtains triplets data ("product A is closer to B than it is to C") from an online survey to compute an embedding---i.e., a low-dimensional representation of the latent product space. The embedding can either (i) replace data on observed characteristics in mixed logit models, or (ii) provide pairwise product distances to discipline cross-elasticities in log-linear models. We illustrate both approaches by estimating demand for ready-to-eat cereals; the information contained in the embedding leads to more plausible substitution patterns and better fit.
Working Papers
“Markups and Costs under Capacity Constraints: the Welfare Effects of Hotel Mergers,” Job Market Paper [link].
Hotel chain mergers increase market concentration but also stand to decrease average costs, leading to ambiguous consumer welfare effects. This paper constructs an equilibrium model of the U.S. hospitality sector, incorporating a flexible model of costs which captures capacity constraints and firm size. I show that firms with larger hotel portfolios face lower average costs when approaching full occupancy. In counterfactual analysis, I find that merging firms decrease average costs (-2.19%) but raise prices (1.34%): however, pro-competitive merger outcomes are obtainable in markets where hotel chains are not overly large and are able to reduce costs through pooling unused capacity.
“Using Online Default Recommendation Data for Differentiated Product Demand Estimation," [link].
Online recommendation platforms aid consumers in making decisions amid large choice sets by suggesting commonly-chosen alternatives to explored products. Using default recommendations for alternative hotel choices from Google Travel, I rank products on similarity and construct an embedding of the latent preference space for the mean consumer for hotels in Orange County, CA. I show via simulation and an empirical exercise that these data can be used to augment the estimation of a flexible demand model incorporating heterogeneous preferences for differentiated products. This approach is viable even in the absence of observed product characteristics and requires no proprietary platform data.
Research in Progress
“Demand and Competition in the Market for Mobile Apps” with Lorenzo Magnolfi and Alan Sorensen.
The flourishing market for mobile apps has been fertile ground for mergers and acquisitions, and some notable acquisitions have attracted antitrust attention for being cases where the target was a potential competitor of the acquirer. This paper develops and estimates a demand model for mobile apps---where the relevant consumer choice is time rather than money---in order to measure the degree of substitutability between a given pair of apps. We position apps in a latent product space using an embedding derived from surveyed product comparisons. From the estimated substitution patterns, we investigate how many of the 140+ mobile app acquisitions since 2008 were of close substitutes to the acquirer.
"Consolidation and Market Power in the Infrastructure Raw Material Industry" with Mike Eriksen.
"Price Discrimination, Markups, and Substitution for Hotels" with Ralph Siebert.
"The Welfare Impacts of Housing Discrimination" with Sharada Dharmasankar.
Other Publications
“Embeddings and Distance-based Demand for Differentiated Products” with Lorenzo Magnolfi and Alan
Sorensen. EC 2022: Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Conference on Economics and Computation. 2022.
Sorensen. EC 2022: Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Conference on Economics and Computation. 2022.
“Workplace Bans On Sugar-Sweetened Beverages.” Health Affairs, 40(3), p. 543. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.02362
“Dragons, Giants, Elephants and Mice: Evolution of the MFN Free Rider Problem in the WTO Era” with Rodney Ludema and Anna Maria Mayda. CEPR Discussion Papers 10961, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. 2015. Available at [SSRN].