Calendrier du 18 septembre 2023
Roy Seminar (ADRES)
Du 18/09/2023 de 17:00 à 18:15
Salle R1-09, Campus Jourdan, 75014 Paris
PARK In-Uck (Bristol)
*Information Sale and Trade (joint with Robert Evans)
We study design and pricing of information by a monopoly information provider (A) for a buyer in a trading relationship with a seller. If A may only offer a single information structure the profit-maximizing one has a simple, binary threshold character. If A may offer a menu of priced information structures it is optimal to offer a continuum of thresholds which induce a unit-elastic demand function for the seller who sets the highest price with a positive demand. The equilibrium is inefficient unless seller production cost exceeds the mean buyer valuation: in this case, A enhances welfare if cost is high enough (yet below the mean buyer valuation) but reduces it if cost is low enough.
Texte intégral
Econometrics Seminar
Du 18/09/2023 de 16:15 à 17:30
Sciences Po, room H405
TAMER Elie (Harvard University)
Parallel Trends and Dynamic Choices
écrit avec Co-authors: Philip Marx and Xun Tang
Difference-in-differences is a common method for estimating treatment effects, and the parallel trends condition is its main identifying assumption: the trend in mean untreated outcomes is independent of the observed treatment status. In observational settings, treatment is often a dynamic choice made or influenced by rational actors, such as policy-makers, firms, or individual agents. This paper relates parallel trends to economic models of dynamic choice. We clarify the implications of parallel trends on agent behavior and study when dynamic selection motives lead to violations of parallel trends. Finally, we consider identification under alternative assumptions that accommodate features of dynamic choice.
Paris Migration Economics Seminar
Du 18/09/2023 de 12:30 à 13:30
R1.14
MASTROBUONI Giovanni (Collegio Carlo Alberto)
Once Upon a Time in America: the Mafia and the Unions
écrit avec Andrea Matranga (University of Torino) and Marta Troya-Martinez (New Economic School and CEPR
With the emergence of the Italian-American mafia, which we show was driven by labor unrest and a demand for protection, as well as immigration from Italy, labor racketeering became one of the most profitable criminal activities. The Mafia infiltrated several labor unions, controlling labor and restricting competition. We identify places and industries that were more likely to be infiltrated, and show that in such places individuals of Italian origin climbed up to leadership positions. In response to the likely support of workers of Italian origin, these workers started earning significantly more than other European immigrants. This suggest that the Mafia was not only using violence to control labor but was paying them rents too. In their fight against organized crime, the US passed the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. We show that RICO cases, which most likely broke many cartels that were kept in place by the threat of violence, led to subsequent growth in employment, in the number of establishments and even in overall wages. The effects were larger in construction, an industry traditionally prone to mafia influence
Régulation et Environnement
Du 18/09/2023 de 12:00 à 13:30
R1-09
GRAS Clément (PSE)
Hybrid Platform Screening
Online marketplaces commonly employ a hybrid business model, wherein they are ver- tically integrated and sell their own products competing with third-party sellers on their platform. Free entry of these sellers may lead to the presence of harmful and illegal prod- ucts, which consumers are not able to differentiate from safe ones. We extend the model of Anderson and Bedre-Defolie (2021) allowing the platform to invest in screening of sell- ers to remove illegal third-party products. We find that seller screening has an ambiguous effect on entry on the platform, and a condition for a platform to engage in screening is that it accommodates entry. Also, we find that more integrated platforms tend to screen less. Moreover, a platform conducting seller screening sets higher commission fees, the level of which can decrease in platform’s degree of vertical integration in contrast with previous literature. From a welfare perspective, platforms invest too little in screening as compared to social optimum, and a regulation mandating higher screening intensity has an ambiguous effect on consumers’ surplus.