This dissertation consists of three essays of empirical industrial organization. Chapter one applies the Becker-Murphy (1988) theory of rational addiction to the case of carbonated soft drinks, using a time-varying parameter model and scanner data from 46 U.S. cities. The empirical results show...

We study the effects of air pollution on business performance of a retail industry: restaurants. Using contemporaneous data, we link the business outcomes of a chain restaurants in Beijing to traffic and pollution in their surroundings. Air pollution has adverse effects on restaurant revenue,...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a new model to empirically analyze retail pricing dynamics led by the competition between retailers, using fluid milk markets of three US metropolitan areas as a case study. The research is important for Chinese public policy makers to find the...

This paper analyzes the impact of diabetes awareness on labor income using data from a natural experiment in China. We find that diabetes in general leads to a 16.3% decrease in annual income after respondents being diagnosed, and the adverse impact is heterogeneous across different populations....

We study the effects of air pollution on business performance of a retail industry: restaurants. Using contemporaneous data, we link the business outcomes of a chain restaurants in Beijing to traffic and pollution in their surroundings. Air pollution has adverse effects on restaurant revenue,...

Climate change, which includes not only rising average temperatures but also extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and a variety of negative consequences, is an urgent global issue that has garnered considerable public attention. In many regions of the world, people are already facing a...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to apply the Becker-Murphy theory of rational addiction to the case of carbonated soft drinks. The research aims to reveal the rational addiction evidence of carbonated soft drinks and derive policy implications under this evidence. Consumers' rational...