Working Papers

This paper analyzes factors that affect the exit and expansion of U.S. petroleum refineries using plant-level capacity data from 1947 to 2013. We find that larger refineries are less likely to close

This paper studies Tesoro’s 2013 acquisition of British Petroleum’s Los Angeles refinery. We present a merger simulation model tailored to the gasoline market, which includes Cournot firms and a price

This paper analyzes the accuracy of various prospective hospital merger screening methods used by antitrust agencies and the courts. The qualitative and quantitative predictions of the screening

We employ experimental economics techniques to gain insight into the factors that affect consumer susceptibility to fraudulent advertising. We asked participants to rate the credibility of a series of

This paper considers a previously unexamined increase in excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel that were part of Washington State’s Nickel Funding Package of 2003.  We fail to reject full pass

We compare the private and social incentives for privacy when sellers can commit to transparent privacy policies that are understood by consumers.  The purpose is to establish a baseline for how well

This paper considers the effects of refinery outages (due to planned turn-arounds or unplanned events) on current petroleum product prices and future refinery investment. Empirical evidence on these

Increased competition from the Internet has raised a concern of product quality for online prescription drugs. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prohibits the importation of unapproved drugs into

Efforts to understand the relationship between market structure and the quality of health services are complicated by the non-random character of patients' choices of where to receive care. To address

In recent decades, the prevalence of obesity in America has increased dramatically. Though it has attracted less attention, the demographic composition of the American population also changed during

Generic drugs play an important role in disciplining drug prices and controlling rising drug costs. However, the effect that an additional generic drug competitor has on drug prices is difficult to

An all-units discount is a price reduction applied to all units purchased if the customer's total purchases equal or exceed a given quantity threshold. Since the discount is paid on all units rather

A game of herding with capacity constraints is studied experimentally. Differences between Level-k strategies depend on the cost of choosing an alternative that has reached capacity, with a maximum

Over the last 25 years, for-profit facilities have supplanted non-profits as the modal providers of hemodialysis treatment to American sufferers of end-stage renal disease. To understand what may

This study estimates the price effects of horizontal mergers in the U.S. grocery retailing industry. We examine fourteen regions affected by mergers including both highly concentrated and relatively

We analyze the effect of product quality on the output of a high-quality dominant firm facing a low-quality competitive fringe. Using a standard vertical differentiation model, we show that profit

An extensive literature shows that agency issues and transactions costs influence vertical integration. Another mature literature indicates that market structure influences competitive behavior

PUBLISHED AS: Vertical Separation Increases Gasoline Prices

Analyses of organizational form's impact on economic behavior have been rarer than studies of the determinants of organizational form itself

In many settings where spatial preemption might be expected to produce tightly concentrated industry structures, firms share the market instead. Using a strategic investment model, I show that this