Nicole Scholz

I am a PhD candidate in economics at the University of Warwick and recipient of the ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership.

In my research I study topics in industrial organisation with a focus on policy-relevant applications grounded in solid theoretical foundations and the development of practical methods for researchers and policymakers.

Email: nicole.scholz@warwick.ac.uk

Job Market Paper

Estimating Multi-Product Production Functions: What Can We Learn Without Demand Assumptions? [paper]

Abstract: I prove that, when the demand side is unrestricted, production functions for multi-product firms are unidentified, except in population if the conditional time- series variance of inputs is unbounded. I develop a novel identification strategy that does not rely on demand-side assumptions. Instead, by imposing the weaker assumption that the productivity distribution is in a stationary equilibrium, I show that the production function parameters are set-identified. Using simulations, I show that the estimator is robust to non-stationarity of the productivity processes in short panels and provide evidence that the identified set is highly informative about the data-generating parameters. My approach avoids the need for instruments or numerical solvers, providing a widely applicable method for estimation.

Professional Experience

I have spent a year working in the Competition and Markets Authority's Microeconomics Research Unit. During this time I have worked on the report on "Competition and Market Power in UK Labour Markets" (2024) and the "State of Competition Report" (2024) using the Annual Business Survey and Lightcast's UK vacancy dataset.

The "State of Competition Report" (2024) was a runner up of the UK Government Economic Service's 2025 John Hoy award for impactful analysis.

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