About Me

I am a PhD Candidate in the Economics Department at University of California, Berkeley.

My research interests lie in industrial organization, with a focus on auctions, healthcare markets, and financial markets.
I am on the 2024-25 job market.

Working Papers

Entry Deterrence in Procurement Auctions (Job Market Paper): draft coming soon

Abstract Firms have incentives to alter competitors' beliefs about their entry to deter others from entering the market. They may achieve this objective by disclosing their intent to enter. We study procurement auctions conducted by Montana Department of Transportation, where a designated online Q&A forum serves as an entry disclosure device. We specify and estimate a model of procurement auctions with costly entry, in which firms have the option to disclose entry. We find that disclosure deters entry from others, and disclosure is beneficial for a firm if they can disclose at an early period. Overall, the availability of disclosure device decreases the auctioneer's payment by 6.3%, while increasing the winner's construction costs by 4.5% and decreasing the total entry costs by 11.1%.

Identification and Estimation of Dynamic Games with Unknown Information Structure

with Konan Hara and Paul Koh

Abstract This paper studies the identification and estimation of dynamic games when the underlying information structure is unknown to the researcher. To tractably characterize the set of Markov perfect equilibrium predictions while maintaining weak assumptions on players' information, we introduce Markov correlated equilibrium, a dynamic analog of Bayes correlated equilibrium. The set of Markov correlated equilibrium predictions coincides with the set of Markov perfect equilibrium predictions that can arise when the players can observe more signals than assumed by the analyst. Using Markov correlated equilibrium as the solution concept, we propose tractable computational strategies for informationally robust estimation, inference, and counterfactual analysis that deal with the non-convexities arising in dynamic environments. We use our method to analyze the dynamic competition between Starbucks and Dunkin' in the US and the role of informational assumptions.

Publications (Economics)

Coexisting Exchange Platforms: Limit Order Books and Automated Market Makers

with Jun Aoyagi, Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, forthcoming

Abstract Blockchain-based decentralized exchanges have adopted automated market makers(AMM)—algorithms that aggregate liquidity and automatically set asset prices. Thispaper analyzes coexisting market structures, a limit-order book (LOB) and an AMM,to investigate their interactions in terms of liquidity. Based on their fundamental designdifferences, we show that fluctuations in liquidity in the AMM stimulate disproportion-ate reactions from informed and noise traders, leading to a positive spillover effect on liquidity in the LOB market. Furthermore, unlike models that primarily focus on theAMM, the coexisting environment leads to a hump-shaped reaction of liquidity supply in the AMM to asset volatility.

Employer risk-adjustment transitions with inertial consumers: Evidence from CalPERS

with Benjamin Handel, Nianyi Hong, and Lynn M. Hua, Journal of Risk and Insurance, 2023

Abstract Risk-adjustment policies, which transfer money from insurers with healthy consumers to those with sick consumers, are an important tool to contend with adverse selection in health insurance markets. While the steady-state properties of risk-adjustment have been studied extensively, there is less evidence on the transition phase of policy implementation. We study the introduction and removal of risk-adjustment at California Public Employees' Retirement System and show that these changes meaningfully impact premiums via plan differences in enrollee health status. Despite these premium differences, there is limited consumer resorting due to consumer inertia, though new active enrollees respond more fluidly. We show that, with inertial consumers, risk-adjustment changes have substantial distributional consequences, leading to worse outcomes for sicker consumers when removed and vice-versa when implemented. We estimate a model of plan choice with premium sensitivity, brand preferences, and inertia and use these estimates to study the interaction between risk-adjustment policies and the strength of inertia.

The Effect of Inertia on Brand-Name versus Generic Drug Choices

with Konan Hara and Yasuki Kobayashi, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2020.

Abstract Consumers’ tendency to repurchase products is called inertia. This study investigates inertia in brand-name and generic drug choices, which is manifested by the slow and limited adoption of generic drugs despite their lower prices. We use claims data from Japan and focus on the generic entry of a widely prescribed lipid-lowering drug, Pitavastatin. Observing the periods before and after the generic entry gives us a unique opportunity to identify the effect of inertia. We construct a choice model that incorporates price, heterogeneous brand preferences, and inertia to quantify each component's magnitude. We find that both inertia and heterogeneity in brand preferences have substantial effects. Counterfactual simulations suggest that a nudging policy that removes inertia from previous brand-name users, such as by alerting the patients to switch to cheaper generic drugs, may have substantial effects and enable patients to choose optimally.

Work in Progress

On Auctions with Unobserved Heterogeneity and Weak Assumptions on Information

with Kei Kawai

Primary Care Physician-Specialist Racial Concordance in Forming Referral Networks

with Konan Hara

Abstract We study the role of racial concordance between primary care physicians and specialists in physician referral network formation and its consequences on racial health disparity. Using a 20% random sample of Medicare beneficiaries in the United States, we find that primary care physicians refer patients to the same race specialists more than otherwise, especially when the patients are also the same race. We propose a structural framework to separately identify the racial concordance effect net of health outcome benefits on referral decisions and the racial concordance effect on health outcomes.

Competing DAOs

with Jun Aoyagi

Abstract A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is an entity with no central control and ownership. A group of users discuss, propose, and implement a new platform design with smart contracts on blockchain, taking control away from a centralized platformer. We develop a model of platform competition with the DAO governance structure and analyze how strategic complementarity affects the development of DAOs. Compared to traditional competition between centralized platformers, a DAO introduces an additional layer of competition played by users. Since users are multi-homing, they propose a new platform design by internalizing interactions between platforms and create additional values, which is reflected by the price of a governance token. A platformer can extract this value by issuing a token but must relinquish control of her platform, losing potential fee revenue. Analyzing this tradeoff, we show that centralized platformers tend to be DAOs when strategic complementarity is strong, while an intermediate degree of strategic complementarity leads to the coexistence of a DAO and a traditional centralized platform.

The Role of Proportional Offers in Sequential Bargaining: Evidence from eBay

with Kiyotaka Yageta