Research

I work at the intersection of industrial organization and health economics, focusing on how firms’ pricing strategies interact with health and safety regulations.

Working Papers:
My job market paper, “Nonlinear Pricing under Quantity and Tax Interventions: The Market for Fountain Soda,” examines how firms respond to specific taxes and capacity limits aimed at reducing sugar consumption. I show that when firms use nonlinear pricing, maximum-size restrictions outperform taxes in 76% of markets.

Research in Progress:
My second project, “Shrinkflation and Price Adjustment Mechanisms in Convenience Retail,” uses the same model developed in my job market paper to study shrinkflation. Shrinkflation occurs when firms reduce quantity or quality in response to a cost shock. The model shows that firms may adjust the consumer types they cater to following a cost shock. If they shift toward consumers with higher willingness to pay, it can be optimal to keep prices fixed while decreasing quantity. I believe this is one of, if not the first models in which shrinkflation arises as an optimal firm response rather than a behavioral phenomenon.

A third project, “Product Liability, Innovation, and Safety Regulation in the Market for Table Saws,” studies how liability rules and safety standards shape innovation incentives. In 2004, Stephen Gass invented a table saw technology that drastically reduces injury risk, yet it has not been adopted by most major power-tool companies despite multiple licensing attempts. Court evidence suggests that the cost of implementing the technology was small relative to the safety improvements it would have provided (Osorio v. Ryobi, 2006). This project is open-ended, but I aim to study mechanisms that could allow fringe competitors to adopt safety patents and to explore how risk-utility analysis in product liability law may inhibit safety-oriented R&D.