Research
Job Market Paper
Staggered Rollout for Innovation Adoption (draft coming soon),
Abstract: Consider a government trying to reach mass immunity through vaccination before new virus mutations kick in, a matchmaker (or service) platform wanting to reach a critical mass of adopters on one side of the market, or a planner coordinating the take-up of a new pest control product in a region. When the adoption of innovation generates information on its value for others, take-up occurs with delay, which is undesirable for a principal who wants to reach a target adoption rate as soon as possible. We study how a principal can use supply availability to hamper strategic delays and discuss how optimal rollout plans should change depending on the distribution of payoffs in the population. We also characterize when take-up contingent commitment power can be valuable to the principal.
Presented at (includes upcoming): LACEA-LAMES 2023, SBE 2023
Working Papers
Do Peer Preferences Matter in School Choice Market Design? Theory and Evidence (with Natalie Cox, and Bobak Pakzad-Hurson),
Abstract: Can a centralized school choice clearinghouse generate a stable matching if it does not allow students to express their preferences over both programs and peers? Theoretically, we show that a stable matching exists with peer preferences under mild conditions, but finding one via canonical mechanisms is unlikely. We show that increasing transparency about the previous cohort of students enrolling at each program induces a tâtonnement process wherein the distributions of former student types play the role of prices. We theoretically model this process and develop a test for match stability. We implement this test empirically in the college admissions market in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, where we find evidence of preferences over relative peer ability. We show that the NSW market fails to converge to stability over time. We propose a new mechanism that improves upon the current design, and we show that this mechanism generates a stable matching in the NSW market.
Paper Presented at: Brown Theory Lunch (Fall 2020), Brown Applied Micro Lunch (Spring 2021), Matching in Practice Workshop 2021*, SAET 2021*, NBER Summer Institute 2021(Education)*, LACEA-LAMES 2021, SBE 2021, EC'22*, Stony Brook 2022*
*Presented by coauthor
Keeping Experts Honest (draft coming soon)
Maximal Preference Domains for the Existence of Efficient and Strategyproof Mechanisms (draft coming soon)