Research

Publications

• The effects of the Affordable Care Act on Seasonal Agricultural Workers, (with Jeffrey Perloff)  Journal of The Agricultural and Applied Economic Association (2022) [Paper] 

Abstract: This study investigates the effects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) policies (Medicaid expansion, health insurance premium subsidy, and tax penalty) on farmworkers' health insurance coverage and healthcare utilization. Using the National Agricultural Worker Survey, we find that the ACA policies substantially raised the share of seasonal farmworkers with medical insurance. It significantly increased workers' use of preventive medical services and decreased the use of hospitals, including emergency rooms, which was a goal of the law's proponents. These effects did not significantly differ between workers with and without a pre-existing medical condition.

• Defaults and Decisions: Choice Architecture and Consumer Opt-Out, (Forthcoming) Management Science [Paper] 

Abstract: Why do defaults stick? This paper estimates a structural model that disentangles two frictions underlying default adherence: a deviation cost (disutility when the chosen option differs from the consumer's ideal) and an opt-out cost (effort to override the default). I estimate the model on 8.6 million tipping decisions from NYC Yellow Taxi trips. A stated-preference survey identifies consumer preferences independently of defaults. The central finding is friction complementarity: 84% of default adherence arises from the interaction of both frictions, not from either alone. Deviation costs are small when consumer preferences are near a default, so even a modest opt-out cost sustains adherence. Structural parameters are stable when default options change, ruling out preference anchoring. A single lower default captures 69% of the maximum consumer welfare gain. Tip revenue falls 5.4%.

Media Coverage: Forbes, WSJ, WSJ, Stanford Insights, Marginal Revolution

Presented at: Psychology and Economics Lunch Series (UCB), IO Seminar Series (UCB), Science & Philanthropy Initiative Conference, Haas School of Business Marketing Seminar Series, Stanford GSB Marketing Seminar, Stanford GSB Rising Scholars Conference, Chicago Booth Marketing Seminar, Stanford Institute of Theoretical Economics, Marketing Science Conference, Public and Labor Economics Workshop (Texas A&M), Simon Business School Marketing Seminar (University of Rochester), IAREP-SABE 2021 Virtual Conference, Virtual Quantitative Marketing Seminar, BASS FORMS Conference (UT Dallas), 2022 World Economic Science Association Conference (MIT), Stanford Behavioral and Experimental Economics Seminar.

Working Papers

• The Price of Identity: Overoptimism and Congruence Concerns (with Eugen Dimant, Lorenz Götte, Michael Kurschilgen, & Maximilian Muller) [Paper]

Abstract: We examine how identity influences economic decision-making, using field experiments on sports betting to measure belief distortions and identity-driven preferences. We find that people overestimate the likelihood of identity-aligned outcomes by 10–18%, and allocate 20% more of their betting budget to teams for which they have an affinity than to neutral teams. Using a structural model of portfolio allocation, we show that overoptimism accounts for 30%–44% of this investment gap, while the remaining 56%–70% stems from an aversion to betting against one’s favored team, even when such bets offer higher expected returns. Our estimates suggest that this aversion is equivalent to discounting gains from identity-incongruent outcomes by 17%–27%. We also provide evidence for the "identity-threat response" theory: when individuals perceive their identity as under threat–such as after their team’s poor performance–they strengthen their commitment, reinforcing identity-driven betting. Our findings raise policy concerns, as identity-driven biases may exacerbate financial harm not only in the rapidly expanding sports betting market but also in broader consumer and financial decision-making contexts where identity affects choices.

Presented & Scheduled: Stanford Institute of Theoretical Economics, Stanford GSB Marketing Seminar, Kellogg School of Management, Ross School of Business (University of Michigan), Virtual Experimental Economics Seminar Series (Middlebury), Imperial College London, MIT Sloan, Cornell, UChicago.

• Leveling Down: Competition and Discrimination in Service Markets [Paper]

Abstract: Does competition reduce discrimination? Yes, but this paper identifies leveling-down, a mechanism less benign than the standard selection story. Competition narrows discrimination gaps by degrading service for everyone, with the largest degradation for those previously treated best. I model discrimination as in-group favoritism rather than out-group hostility. Providers favor same-group customers, but the favoritism requires surplus that competition erodes. Preferential treatment is a luxury good. In the New York City taxi market, airport queues randomly assign passengers to drivers. Before new competitors entered in 2013, drivers charged higher fares and took longer routes for passengers whose race differed from the driver's. Competition compressed these disparities by two-thirds through leveling down. The cost of degraded service exceeded the benefit of reduced discrimination by a factor of 2.3.

Presented & Scheduled: NBER Summer Institute (Labor Studies, 2026); Western Economics Association International (2025)

• Misreading the Crowd: The Composition Externality of Inference [Draft coming soon]

Abstract: In a congested market, the public signal that agents read is generated as much by the demand they want to infer as by one another's choices. How much each agent gains from the signal then depends on how the others read it. We call this the composition externality of inference and measure it in the stay-or-leave decisions of New York City taxi drivers at LaGuardia Airport.  Twenty-four thousand drivers read a publicly observable queue but differ in how well their decisions track demand; we call the responsive ones sophisticated and the rest naive. A sophisticated driver's hourly earnings rise with the local share of naive drivers at high demand and fall at low demand. An equilibrium model of the two types predicts this sign reversal; the reduced-form estimates confirm it, and the structural model recovers the misperception that generates it. At the observed lot capacity and beyond, disclosing the demand state lengthens queues and lowers welfare for every driver in line; only at smaller lots does disclosure help. A fee on naive entry shows no such reversal: it raises welfare at every capacity and recovers about 65,000 driver-hours per year, worth roughly $1.5 million at city wage rates. The simplest and most intuitive remedy, making the demand state public, is the one that can backfire; pricing the externality does not.