Research

• Toward a Theory of Vulnerability Disclosure Policy: A Hacker's Game, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 11836, Ch. 8 (Sept. 2019).

  • A game between software vendors, heterogeneous software users, and a hacker is introduced in which software vendors attempt to protect software users by releasing updates, i.e. disclosing a vulnerability, and the hacker is attempting to exploit vulnerabilities in the software package to attack the software users. The software users must determine whether the protection offered by the update outweighs the cost of installing the update. Following the model is a description of why the disclosure of vulnerabilities can only be an optimal policy when the cost to the hacker of searching for a Zero-Day vulnerability is small. The model is also extended to discuss Microsoft's new "extended support" disclosure policy.

  • Mathematical Appendix

• Determinants of Short-term Lender Location and Interest Rates, joint with Richard Evans, Journal of Financial Services Research, 48:3, pp. 235-262 (Dec. 2015).

  • This study tests the degree to which payday and title lenders differentiate their store location and interest rates based on the socioeconomic characteristics of the areas in which they operate. We use store-level lender data, geographically matched IRS income data, and Census Bureau demographic data to answer these questions. In the case of lender location, we find that payday and title lenders tend to locate in areas with lower median age, a larger population of not married households, more restaurants, and more pawn shops. We also find a nonlinear relationship between lender location and individual incomes in the surrounding area. Regarding lender interest rates, we find that competition among lenders reduces average interest rates and that riskiness of borrowers, as measured by defaults, increases average interest rates. We also find that payday and title lenders have higher interest rates in areas with lower educational attainment, smaller proportions of Black residents, and fewer married households. This evidence seems to contradict the argument that payday and title lenders prey on minorities.

• Industry Level Baseline Risk of COVID-19 Infection, joint with Carlos Carvalho and Richard Lowery, Mercatus Working Paper, June 2020.

  • We present an industry classification level model of risk of the novel coronavirus spread and economic contribution for the Austin metropolitan area. Our measure combines various categories of activities that seem to lead to viral spread. We believe these measures will provide useful information about how to ease current lockdowns and how to more efficiently put in place future lockdowns if they are needed.

  • Extra Data for Other Texas Cities: Salem Center COVID-19 Site

• Do Political Orthodoxies Influence Academic Publications? joint with Richard Lowery, 2023.

• The User's Guide to Solving Games via the Modular Groebner Basis Approach, joint with Kenneth Judd and Robert Clark, 2023.

  • Many economic problems are inherently non-linear, so we introduce the MGBA, the Modular Groebner Basis Approach, which is a solution technique from Algebraic Geometry that can be used to "triangularize'' polynomial systems. The MGBA is a computational tool that overcomes the typical computational problems of intermediate coefficient swell and solving for lucky primes that can limit the ability to compute Groebner bases. The Groebner basis is an all-solution computational technique that can be applied to many fields in economics. This paper focuses on applying the MGBA to Bertrand games with multiple equilibria and a manifold approach to solving dynamic programming problems.  

  • Toolset coming soon.

Health Economics:

• COVID-19 Lockdown Effects on Micropolitan Areas: An Urban Economics Approach, joint with Patrick Opitz

• Rethinking Optimal Liver Transplantation: National List with Optimal Proximity Points, joint with Graesen Redding

• Determinants of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) in Liver Transplant Patients: The Tattoo and Piercing Effect, joint with Graesen Redding

• Toronto Blue Jays: Is Canada's COVID Policy Creating a Competitive Advantage?, joint with Alexander Domond

• Effects of Covid-19 on Birthrates, joint with Ari Kang and Lily Rembert

• The Education and Public Health of Children: County Level Variation in Texas School Restrictions, joint with Ari Kang and Diego Morales-Burnett

Meta-Analysis:

• Can We Replicate Discrimination Papers?, joint with Richard Lowery, Ben Coppock

• Do Academic Journal Policy Changes Improve Replicatability in Economics and Finance: A DEI Case Study, joint with Richard Lowery and Ben Coppock

• Are Discrimination Papers Discriminatory?, joint with Richard Lowery, Audrey Peres, and Alexander Domond 

• A Network Analysis of Academic Freedom Proposals, joint with Richard Lowery and Will Reed 

Cyber & National Security:

• The Global Game of Hacking Back

• Do the Empirics Work in Cyber Insurance Markets?

• The Economics of Espionage: Baseball Sticky Stuff, joint with Isaac Swift and Alexander Domond

• Property Rights and The Economics of Surveillance Capitalism, joint with Juan Calvo

Industrial Organization:

• Effects of Inflation and Recessions on Luxury Goods, joint with Richard Lowery and Sonali Mishra

• Does Monopolistic Pricing Power Exist in Small Firm Mergers?, joint with John Hatfield and Will Robinson

Computational Economics:

• The Problem with Modern Signal Processing in Finance, joint with Samuel Kaplan and Patrick Opitz

  • This paper sets out to critique the current use of signal processing or statistical filtering used in finance and offer an alternative that is effective and easy to use. In econometrics, time series offers many methods of analysis. Signal Processing is a method of analysis done using a differing type of model or filter. Studying financial markets or product filters can provide meaningful insight. Time series analysis can provide insight into market predictions such as forecasting future stock prices and volatility. Filters do this job by providing high accuracy in the estimation and reduce errors in the model. The benefit is known in engineering, statistics, and econometrics; however, the full capacity of these signal processing tools are not used in finance.

Finance & Fintech:

• Comparing Commodity-to-Fiat Based Risk Within Competing Cryptocurrencies, joint with Samuel Kaplan

• Effects of Contested Elections on Financial Markets, joint with John Hatfield, Patrick Opitz, and Sonali Mishra

• Policy Approaches to Pump-and-Dump Schemes on Small Coins: Social Welfare with Memory, joint with Tarini Sudhakar, Thao Nguyen, and Dhruv Saharia

• An Experimental Examination of a Dual-Currency System, joint with Samuel Kaplan, Aaron Phipps, and Will Reed

• Is Leadership a Measurable Soft-Capital?: AI and Experiments, joint with Samuel Kaplan and Aaron Phipps

Education Economics:

• How do Rising Fatherlessness Rates Impact Children's Language Development? A Legacy of the Great Society, joint with Ari Kang and Isaiah Rodrigues

• Family Views on Standardized Testing and Homeschooling: Texas as a Case-study, joint with Diego Morales-Burnett