We develop a method to estimate a game’s primitives in complex dynamic environments. Because of the environment’s complexity, agents may not know or understand some key features of their interaction. Instead of equilibrium assumptions, we impose an asymptotic ε-regret (ε-AR) condition on...

Short-term congestion forecasting is highly important for market participants in wholesale power markets that use Locational Marginal Prices (LMPs) to manage congestion. Accurate congestion forecasting facilitates market traders in bidding and trading activities and assists market operators in...

We develop tests for common values at first-price sealed-bid auctions. Our tests are nonparametric, require observations only of the bids submitted at each auction, and are based on the fact that the "winner's curse" arises only in common values auctions. The tests build on recently developed...

Most economists' instinctive reaction to price controls is that they are harmful. If enforced, they result in shortages and resource misallocation. With weak enforcement they often result in black markets, and high transaction costs. In this paper we assess the pros and cons of rice price...

This paper studies market segmentation that arises from the introduction of a price ceiling in the market for rental housing. When part of the market faces rent control, theory predicts an increase of free-market rents, a consequence of misallocation of households to housing units. We study a...

The main purpose of this paper is to calculate the effective total factor productivity (ETFP) of the Brazilian agricultural and industrial sectors during 1990-2009. The results are the following: all sectors have reached high ETFPs, with a few exceptions; however, the ETFPs have not mobilized...

This paper analyzes empirically the effects of a second generation rent control. We investigate the consequences of an uncommon policy intervention in the German housing market in 2015. We rely on a difference-and-differences setup, augmented with elements of a discontinuity-in-time design, to...

Price inflation in the euro area has been stable and low since the Global Financial Crisis, despite notable changes in output and unemployment. We show that an increasing share of high markup firms is part of the explanation of why inflation remained stubbornly stable and low in the euro area...

The capital as power framework, developed by Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler, argues that the aim of business is not ‘profit maximization’ but the differential accumulation of social power. Using this framework as a theoretical starting point, I analyze the differential accumulation...

Although blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies have grown in popularity over the past years, there does not seem to be a consensus if they bring any value to economic interactions. In this paper, I argue that a fundamental value the blockchain provides is commitment. I develop a model of an...