PhD IO II @ Boston College

This repository contains the readings and problems set for the Murry half (second half) of PHD IO II (Spring 2021) @ Boston College with Michael Grubb.

Problem Set 1 is due on XX @ 9am.

Problem Set 2 is due on May 5.

Class Schedule

(See References for paper abbreviations.)

3/17 -- Production functions

• Intro, OP and LP, and ACF
• (Notation from ACF)

3/25 -- Production Functions and Market Power

• DeLoecker and Warzynski (2012); DeLoecker, Echout, Unger (2020)
• Berry, Gaynor, Scott Morton (2019); Demsetz (1973)
• Grieco, Murry, Yurukoglu (wp)
• Problem Set 1, Production Functions, Posted on Github Repo.

Endogenous Products and Competition

4/1 -- Radio and PCs

• Mankiw and Whinston (1986 RAND)
• Berry and Waldfogel (1999 RAND)
• Berry and Waldfogel (2001 QJE)
• Eizenberg (2014)

4/8 More Endogenous Products + Dynamic Games

• Ciliberto, Murry, and Tamer (2020)
• BBL (2007) + others
• Problem Set 2, Endogenous Products, Posted on Github

4/21 Empirical Matching

• Agarwal and Somani (2020)
• Laverde (wp)

4/28

• Anderson and Coate (2005)
• Gentzkow, Shapiro, Yang, Yurukoglu (wp)

References

Market Power

* Demsetz, H. (1973). Industry Structure , Market Rivalry , and Public Policy. Journal of Law and Economics, 16(1), 1–9.

* Berry, Steven, Martin Gaynor, and Fiona Scott Morton. 2019. "Do Increasing Markups Matter? Lessons from Empirical Industrial Organization." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33 (3): 44-68.

* Khan, Lina M. "Amazon's antitrust paradox." Yale lJ 126 (2016): 710.

Production Functions

Core (note acronyms)

* [ACF] Ackerberg, Daniel A., Kevin Caves, and Garth Frazer. "Identification properties of recent production function estimators." Econometrica 83.6 (2015): 2411-2451.

[OP] Olley, G. Steven, and Ariel Pakes. "The dynamics of productivity in the telecommunications equipment industry." Econometrica 64.6 (1996): 1263.

[LP] Levinsohn, James, and Amil Petrin. "Estimating production functions using inputs to control for unobservables." The Review of Economic Studies 70.2 (2003): 317-341.

* De Loecker, Jan, and Frederic Warzynski. "Markups and firm-level export status." American economic review 102.6 (2012): 2437-71.

Dunne, Timothy, Mark J. Roberts, and Larry Samuelson. "The growth and failure of US manufacturing plants." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 104, no. 4 (1989): 671-698.

Some Applications and Other Important Papers

* De Loecker, Jan, and Jan Eeckhout. "The rise of market power and the macroeconomic implications." No. w23687. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2017.

De Loecker, Jan, Pinelopi K. Goldberg, Amit K. Khandelwal, and Nina Pavcnik. "Prices, markups, and trade reform." Econometrica 84, no. 2 (2016): 445-510.

Grieco, Paul LE, and Ryan C. McDevitt. "Productivity and quality in health care: Evidence from the dialysis industry." The Review of Economic Studies 84, no. 3 (2016): 1071-1105.

De Loecker, Jan, and Paul T. Scott. Estimating market power Evidence from the US Brewing Industry. No. w22957. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2016.

Aw, Bee Yan, Mark J. Roberts, and Daniel Yi Xu. "R&D investment, exporting, and productivity dynamics." American Economic Review 101, no. 4 (2011): 1312-44.

Pavcnik, Nina. "Trade liberalization, exit, and productivity improvements: Evidence from Chilean plants." The Review of Economic Studies 69, no. 1 (2002): 245-276.

Dunne, Timothy, Mark J. Roberts, and Larry Samuelson. "Patterns of firm entry and exit in US manufacturing industries." The RAND journal of Economics (1988): 495-515.

Susanto Basu and John G. Fernald, "Returns to Scale in U.S. Production: Estimates and Implications," Journal of Political Economy 105, no. 2 (April 1997): 249-283.

GRILICHES, Z., AND J. MAIRESSE (1998): “Production Functions: The Search for Identification,” in Econometrics and Economic Theory in the Twentieth Century: The Ragnar Frisch Centennial Symposium, ed. by S. Strøm. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. [pp 2413-2421]

Endogenous Products

* Mankiw, N. Gregory, and Michael D. Whinston. "Free entry and social inefficiency." The RAND Journal of Economics (1986): 48-58.

Spence, Michael. "Product selection, fixed costs, and monopolistic competition." The Review of economic studies 43, no. 2 (1976): 217-235.

* Berry, Steven T., and Joel Waldfogel. "Do mergers increase product variety? Evidence from radio broadcasting." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 116, no. 3 (2001): 1009-1025.

* Steven Berry and Joel Waldfogel (1999) “Free Entry and Social Inefficiency in RadioBroadcasting,”RAND Journal of Economics, 30(3), 397–420.

* Eizenberg, Alon. "Upstream innovation and product variety in the us home pc market." Review of Economic Studies 81, no. 3 (2014): 1003-1045.

Berry, Steven, Alon Eizenberg, and Joel Waldfogel. "Optimal product variety in radio markets." The RAND Journal of Economics 47, no. 3 (2016): 463-497.

* Federico Ciliberto, Charles Murry, and Elie T. Tamer. "Market structure and competition in airline markets." Boston College Working Paper, 2018.

* Wollmann, Thomas G. "Trucks without bailouts: Equilibrium product characteristics for commercial vehicles." American Economic Review 108, no. 6 (2018): 1364-1406.

Fan, Ying. "Ownership consolidation and product characteristics: A study of the US daily newspaper market." American Economic Review 103, no. 5 (2013): 1598-1628.

Ying Fan and Chenyu Yang. "Competition, Product Proliferation and Welfare: A Study of the U.S. Smartphone Market", 2018, CEPR Discussion Paper DP11423.

Sophia Li, Joe Mazur, James Roberts, Yongjoon Park and Jun Zhang. "Endogenous and Selective Service Choices After Airline Mergers," working paper here.

Jorge Balat and Sukjin Han. "Multiple Treatments with Strategic Interaction", working paper 2018.

Empirics of Matching Markets (this is a very incomplete list)

* Agarwal, Nikhil, and Paulo Somaini. "Revealed preference analysis of school choice models." Annual Review of Economics 12 (2020): 471-501.

Agarwal, Nikhil, and Paulo Somaini. "Demand analysis using strategic reports: An application to a school choice mechanism." Econometrica 86, no. 2 (2018): 391-444.

* Laverde, Mariana. Distance to Schools and Equal Access in School Choice Systems. No. 2022-002. 2022.

Dynamics and Strategic Interactions

* Rust, John. "Optimal replacement of GMC bus engines: An empirical model of Harold Zurcher." Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society (1987): 999-1033.

* Bajari, Patrick, C. Lanier Benkard, and Jonathan Levin. "Estimating dynamic models of imperfect competition." Econometrica 75, no. 5 (2007): 1331-1370.

Ryan, Stephen P. "The costs of environmental regulation in a concentrated industry." Econometrica 80, no. 3 (2012): 1019-1061.

Collard‐Wexler, Allan. "Demand fluctuations in the ready‐mix concrete industry." Econometrica 81, no. 3 (2013): 1003-1037.

Weintraub, Gabriel Y., C. Lanier Benkard, and Benjamin Van Roy. "Markov perfect industry dynamics with many firms." Econometrica 76, no. 6 (2008): 1375-1411.

Benkard, C. Lanier, Przemyslaw Jeziorski, and Gabriel Y. Weintraub. "Oblivious equilibrium for concentrated industries." The RAND Journal of Economics 46, no. 4 (2015): 671-708.

Ifrach, B., and G.Y. Weintraub (2017), A Framework for Dynamic Oligopoly in Concentrated Industries, The Review of Economic Studies, Vol 84, No. 3, 1106-1150.