This paper examines the strategic behavior of hospitals in one of their primary output markets: inpatient surgical procedures. High levels of learning-by-doing in surgical fields may act as a barrier to entry. I investigate whether incumbent hospitals facing prospective entry in a procedure...

Generic pharmaceuticals provide low-cost access to treatment. Despite their chemical equivalence to branded products, many mechanisms may hinder generic substitution. Consumers may be unaware of their equivalence. Firms may influence consumers through advertising or product line extensions. We...

This paper considers two models for analyzing the dynamics of firm behavior that allow for heterogeneity among firms, idiosyncratic (or firm specific) sources of uncertainty, and discrete outcomes (exit and/or entry). Models with these characteristics are needed for the structural econometric...

Why are higher quality niches seen as intrinsically more profitable in business circles? Why do high quality products sometimes have a low real price, while it is unusual to see low quality products with high real prices? Can markets have quality differentiation as well as quality bunching? In...

In industries with imperfect consumer information, the lack of a reputation puts latecomers at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis established firms. We consider whether the existence of such informational barriers to entry provides a valid reason for temporarily protecting infant producers of...

We propose a model to identify the causes of rising profits and concentration, and declining entry and investment in the US economy. Our approach combines a rich structural DSGE model with cross-sectional identification from firm and industry data. Using asset prices, our model estimates the...

Academics, the media, and policymakers have all raised concerns about the implications of human workers being replaced by machines or software. Few have discussed the implications of the reverse: firms' ability to replace capital with workers. We show that this flexibility can help new firms...

We study how international trade and the exporting decisions of establishments affect establishment creation over the business cycle in a general equilibrium model. The model captures two key features of establishment and exporter dynamics: i) new establishments start small and grow over time...

We exploit state variation in licensing laws to study the effect of licensing on occupational choice using a boundary discontinuity design. We find that licensing reduces equilibrium labor supply by an average of 17%-27%. The negative labor supply effects of licensing appear to be strongest for...

I study cohort patterns in the labor market outcomes of recent college graduates, examining changes surrounding the Great Recession. Recession entrants have lower wages and employment than those of earlier cohorts; more recent cohorts' employment is even lower, but the newest entrants' wages...