We explore the managerial implications and economic consequences of platform sharing under models of horizontal and vertical product differentiation. By using a common platform across different products, firms can save on fixed costs for platform development. At the same time, platform sharing...

This paper studies a unique panel dataset of transactions with repeat customers of an insurer operating in a market in which insurers are not required by law or contract to share information about their customers' records. I use this dataset to test the asymmetric learning hypothesis that...

This paper examines how to evaluate consumer welfare when consumers face nonlinear prices. This problem arises in many settings, such as devising optimal pricing strategies for firms, assessing how price discrimination affects consumers, and evaluating the efficiency costs of many transfer...

This paper provides empirical evidence on the extent of producer heterogeneity in the output market by analyzing output price and price-marginal cost markups at the plant level for thirteen homogenous manufactured goods. It relies on micro data from the U.S. Census of Manufactures over the...

We develop a general equilibrium model of the market for undergraduate higher education that captures the coexistence of public and private colleges, the large degree of quality differentiation among them, and the tuition and admission policies that emerge from their competition for students....

In this article we introduce an empirical framework to analyze how firm performance is affected by increased globalization. Using this framework we discuss recent work on measuring the impact of various shocks firms face in the global marketplace, such as reductions in trade costs (through...

The basic competitive model with freely available technology is suited for static industries but misleading as applied to major innovative economies for which development of new technologies equals in magnitude around 10% of gross domestic investment. We distinguish free generic technology from...

Agents with more experience make better choices. We measure learning dynamics using a panel with four million monthly credit card statements. We study add-on fees, specifically cash advance, late payment, and overlimit fees. New credit card accounts generate fee payments of $15 per month....

Volatile and persistent real exchange rates are observed not only in aggregate series but also in the individual good level data. Kehoe and Midrigan (2007) recently showed that, under a standard assumption on nominal price stickiness, empirical frequencies of micro price adjustment cannot...

Most items are sold to consumers by retail stores. Stores have two features that distinguish them from auctions. First, the price is posted and a consumer who values the good at more than the posted price is sold the good. Second, the sale takes place as soon as the consumer decides to buy. In...