Tiered Network Health Plans and Changes in Physician Practice Intensity (with Anna Sinaiko) [download]. Health Services Research, 2024, 59(1):e14163.
Employed in a SNAP? The Impact of Work Requirements on Program Participation and Labor Supply (with Colin Gray, Adam Leive, Kelsey Pukelis, and Mary Zaki) [download]. AEJ: Economic Policy, 2023, 15(1): 306-341.
Coverage: NPR's The Indicator, NPR Here & Now, NPR Marketplace (1, 2), Time, Vox's The Weeds, The Messenger, Newsweek, Kellogg Insight
Policy impact: cited in Congressional testimony (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), CMS decision letters (1, 2), GAO Congressional report
Tiered Physician Network Plans and Patient Choices of Specialist Physicians (with Vilsa Curto, Alexa Magyari, Marema Gaye, and Anna Sinaiko) [download]. JAMA Network Open, 2023, 6(11):e2341836.
Employer Consolidation and Wages: Evidence from Hospitals (with Matt Schmitt) [download]. American Economic Review, 2021, 111(2): 397-427.
Coverage: New York Times, Freakonomics, Modern Healthcare, Healthcare Dive, Kellogg Insight
Policy impact: FTC statements (1, 2), CEA post (explains Executive Order), Treasury report, cited in Congressional testimony (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12), White House report, 2024 HSR final rule
Health Care Demand Under Simple Prices: Evidence From Tiered Hospital Networks [download]. AEJ: Applied Economics, 2020, 12(4): 196-223.
Coverage: Kellogg Insight
Policy impact: CMS rule, CBO models (1, 2), House report
Collusion through Common Leadership (with Alejandro Herrera-Caicedo and Jessica Jeffers) [download]
R&R at Journal of Political Economy
This paper studies whether common leadership, defined as two firms sharing executives or board directors, contributes to collusion. Using an explicit measure of labor market collusion from unsealed court evidence, we find that the probability of collusion between two firms increases by 12 percentage points after the onset of common leadership, compared to a baseline rate of 1.2 percent in the absence of common leaders. These results are not driven by closeness of product or labor market competition. Our findings are consistent with the increasing attention toward common leadership under Clayton Act Section 8.
Regulating Out-of-Network Hospital Payments: Disagreement Payoffs, Negotiated Prices, and Access (with Nicholas Tilipman) [download]
Reject & resubmit at Journal of Political Economy
Recent policy proposals seek to regulate out-of-network hospital prices. We study how such regulation affects equilibrium prices, network formation, and hospital exit. We estimate a structural model of insurer-hospital bargaining that allows for out-of-network transactions between non-contracting parties. These transactions generate a notion of exit by rendering hospitals unprofitable under some regulations. Estimation relies on a novel measure of out-of-network prices. We find that reducing out-of-network prices would also lower negotiated prices, but potentially at the cost of narrower hospital networks. Aggressive regulation could induce substantial hospital exit, but only under the restrictive assumption that negotiators cannot anticipate the exits.
Peer Learning in College Applications (with Ana Gazmuri) [download]
Decisions about college are highly consequential, yet they are often made with poor information. This paper studies how information about college programs spreads through peer networks and affects application behavior using data from Ontario, Canada. We build and estimate a structural model of application and enrollment decisions. Ontario's unusual admissions rules and detailed microdata make all inputs into admissions decisions observable. This allows us to recast the NP-hard application portfolio problem as a tractable problem, by making a student's admissions probabilities to different programs independent conditional on observables. We also leverage student interactions across cohorts and with neighbors who attend other high schools to resolve standard challenges in estimating peer effects. We find that the probability of applying to a college-major pair increases significantly if a peer in an older cohort has applied to or enrolled in that same program, with stronger results if the peer enrolls. These findings shed light on the consequences of racial and socioeconomic segregation in schools and the long-term evaluation of information interventions.
Antitrust Enforcement in Labor Markets [draft available upon request]
Until recently, antitrust laws were rarely enforced in labor markets. Although the existence of labor market power has long been recognized, evidence only recently emerged that such market power regularly arises from sources that are actionable under antitrust law. Since 2010, antitrust agencies have more than quintupled labor market enforcement actions. However, many questions relevant to enforcement remain unanswered, such as how to conduct market definition for labor markets, and how to tractably incorporate concentration into models of the labor market. This article reviews how antitrust is beginning to be used in labor markets, the evidence for and against its use, and the remaining evidence gaps standing in the way of more effective use.
Bargaining Under Price Transparency: Evidence from Hospital-Insurer Negotiations (with Maryam Saeedi, Robert Town, and Shruthi Venkatesh)
Labor Market Collusion and Careers (with Alejandro Herrera-Caicedo and Jessica Jeffers)
The Value of Alumni Networks: Evidence from Referrals to Medical School Classmates (with Alexa Magyari and Anna Sinaiko) [draft available upon request]
Hospitals Are Paid Their Chargemaster Prices by Some Health Insurers (with Nicholas Tilipman)
Tiered Hospital Networks, Health Care Demand, and Prices