Research Interests: Economic theory; policy implications of market structure; simulation modeling.

My fields of specialization are industrial organization, macro and monetary economics. In particular, I am interested in how market structures and patterns of organization influence economic incentives and effective policy implementation. So far my work has been focused on bilateral matching markets.

Refereed Publications:
"Preference Structure and Random Paths to Stability in Matching Markets," Economics Bulletin, 3 (67) (2008), 1-12. pdf

Job Market Paper:
"Sequential Pre-Marital Investment Games: Implications for Unemployment." pdf
Abstract: Agents on the same side of a two-sided matching market (such as the marriage or labor market) compete with each other by making self-enhancing investments to improve their worth in the eyes of potential partners. Because these expenditures generally occur prior to matching, this activity has come to be known in recent literature (Peters, 2007) as pre-marital investment. This paper builds on that literature by considering the case of sequential pre-marital investment, analyzing a matching game in which one side of the market invests first, followed by the other. Interpreting the first group of agents as workers and the other group as firms, the paper provides a new perspective on the incentive structure that is inherent in labor markets. It also demonstrates that a positive rate of unemployment can exist even in the complete absence of matching frictions. Policy implications follow, as the prevailing set of equilibria can be altered by restricting entry into the workforce, providing unemployment insurance, or subsidizing pre-marital investment.

Working Papers:

"Stratification and Growth in Agent-based Matching Markets," (under review). pdf
Abstract: This paper examines the dynamic impact of matching on economic mobility and growth. To account for complex interactions over time, experimental economies of heterogeneous agents are simulated with the match process acting as a fitness selection mechanism. Even with perfect information and substantial variety in both offspring and entrants, two-sided matching inevitably causes the population to evolve into stratified groups. Corrective measures are possible to improve mobility, but by altering the path of market evolution, a policy may have unintended negative impacts on growth and inequality.
 

"Marriage Matching and Intercorrelation of Preferences," (with V. Knoblauch, under review). pdf
Abstract: Men’s and women’s preferences are intercorrelated to the extent that men rank highly those women who rank them highly. Intercorrelation plays an important but overlooked role in determining outcomes of matching mechanisms. We study via simulation the effect of intercorrelated preferences on men’s and women’s aggregate satisfaction with the outcome of the Gale-Shapley matching mechanism. We conclude with an application of our results to the student admission matching problem.