Research

Social norms shape economic behavior but are difficult to measure. We develop a scalable method that recovers social norms from standard census data as equilibrium beliefs in social interaction models. These beliefs capture prevailing expectations within reference groups and are identified under transparent equilibrium conditions. Applying the method to female labor force participation in Indonesia and Brazil, we recover norm-belief indices at the regency and municipality level. In Java, a one-unit increase in the equilibrium norm raises individual participation by about nine percentage points. The measure predicts future female labor supply and educational investment, has no relationship with male labor supply, and generalizes to Brazil, validating its interpretation as a measure of social norms.

Link to paper

Presentations:

• International Association for Applied Econometrics (presenter) - Italy, June 2025

• Midwest Econometric Group Conference (presenter) - Illinois, October 2025 

We model the strategic interaction between a well owner and the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LDNR) as a simultaneous-move, incomplete-information game. Well owners choose whether to violate environmental regulations, and the LDNR chooses which wells to inspect. We characterize the Bayesian Nash equilibrium as a function of payoff parameters. Using information on all wells in Louisiana, their operators, and LDNR’s inspections and results from FY 2017 to 2024, we estimate the payoff parameters of this game using a nested fixed point (NFXP) penalized maximum likelihood (PMLE) approach. Our estimated parameters align intuitively with the observed inspection and violation rates and reproduce average rates similar to those in the data. We conducted policy simulations where we find that reducing inspection costs leads to higher inspection rates and lower violation rates compared to imposing mandatory penalty fines on violators.

Presentations:

• International Industrial Organization Conference - Pennsylvania, May 2025

• International Association for Applied Econometrics - Italy, June 2025

• World Congress of Econometric Society - Korea, August 2025

This paper studies developers’ platform choice, with a focus on exclusivity, in the sixth-generation video game console market. We estimate a supply-side structural model in which third-party developers choose among single-platform exclusivity and simultaneous multi-platform release, accounting for platform-specific development costs, cross-platform synergies, and exclusivity incentives. We use a revenue-based approach that recovers these primitives without estimating a full demand system, relying on observed revenues and a selection-corrected revenue model to discipline payoffs across platform choices. In a static setting, we find substantial asymmetries in development costs and synergies across platforms, as well as sizable benefits associated with permanent exclusivity. Extending the model to allow developers to endogenously choose launch timing substantially reduces the estimated exclusivity benefits—particularly for platforms with smaller installed bases—indicating that part of what appears as an exclusivity premium in static models reflects the option value of waiting rather than direct platform compensation.