After submitting my dissertation today, it's about time for an update on my job market. I'm thrilled to announce that I will be joining the incredible group of economists at
@TuckSchool
@dartmouth
as an AP in summer! 🎉
New version of my JMP is out 🥳
RQ: If a merger harms consumers but benefits workers, how can we evaluate whether it's worth it?
🛠️ I develop a quantitative framework to assess tradeoff empirically
🧦 Apply this to Whirlpool / Maytag merger in US washer mkt
👇 Paper & results
"While a
@WhirlpoolCorp
acquisition decreased consumer welfare by $250 million, it led to 1,300 fewer domestic jobs lost. Jobs need to be worth above $220,000/yr for domestic employment effects to offset consumer harm" by
#StiglerAffiliate
Fellow
@f_montag
📢 JMP Thread 📢
“Mergers, Foreign Entry, and Jobs: Evidence from the U.S. Appliance Industry”
Should merger control consider domestic employment effects of product mkt mergers?
JMP Link:
👇 A short thread on my JMP
Bittersweet moment — this was my last day at
@TuckSchool
@dartmouth
. Thanks to everyone for such wonderful two years! There‘s an amazing economics community that I cannot recommend highly enough. Truly a 10/10 experience.
Paper was just accepted (literally b/w prior thread and now) at the Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics 🥳
Can only recommend the journal for IO papers! Fast turnaround and very helpful comments from
@matthewgrennan
and referees!
When does Mandatory Price Disclosure Lower Prices?
🟢 Prior consumer info is low
🟢 MPD info easily accessible to consumers
🟢 MPD complemented by info campaigns
⚠️ MPD not useful for sellers
Paper w/ A. Sagimuldina & C. Winter
Details 👇
Kind of crazy… One of the leading experts of the world is willing to serve as Chief Economist in an advisory role and we seem to prefer to forego this for nationalist reasons
Full support for this joint action by
@EPPGroup
, liberals, socialists and greens against the nomination of a non-EU national as Chief Economist in the European Commission. No matter how competent, this is not in our strategic interest.
At the same time, really excited to join the great economics group
@NYUSternEcon
starting on Monday! So many wonderful people working on IO and more. Can‘t wait to be there!
New version on tax pass-through and competition at ⛽️
In a nutshell:
If some consumers don‘t know all prices at all sellers, this gives sellers market power.
Share of informed consumers ⬆️ intensity of comp ⬆️ and tax pass-through ⬆️
Theory & evidence in the paper 👇
Pass-through determines how consumers respond to taxes. A new working paper investigates the impact of imperfect price information on the pass-through of commodity taxes.
@f_montag
(
#StiglerAffiliate
), Robin Mamrak, Alina Sagimuldina, and
@MonikaSchnitzer
Slowly but surely getting ready for the job market.
Check out my new website:
JMP Title: „Mergers, Foreign Entry, and Jobs: Evidence from the U.S. Appliance Industry“
Draft coming soon.
Looking forward to meeting many of you in the upcoming months!
Imperfect Price Info, Market Power, and Tax Pass-Through 🚨
In case you prefer the
@cepr_org
version (I promise, last tweet about this paper for a while)
Had a great day at
@ecares_ulb
today, presenting a paper on Mergers, Foreign Competition, and Jobs!
First time presenting in my hometown is special. Many thanks for the invite,
@Mathieu_Parenti
& to
@GlennMagerman
and everyone else not on Twttr for the interesting conversations!
Really excited to be part of this new program
@StiglerCenter
!
It looks like it‘s going to be a really great forum to discuss research on competition and it‘s political economy dimensions.
The
@StiglerCenter
at
@ChicagoBooth
, of which ProMarket is a part, is happy to announce the first cohort of its new Affiliate Fellows program, a multidisciplinary group of economists, business scholars, lawyers, and political scientists
When does Mandatory Price Disclosure Lower Prices?
🟢 Prior consumer info is low
🟢 MPD info easily accessible to consumers
🟢 MPD complemented by info campaigns
⚠️ MPD not useful for sellers
Paper w/ A. Sagimuldina & C. Winter
Details 👇
A new Stigler Center Working Paper (by our
#StiglerAffiliate
Fellow
@f_montag
and co-authors) sheds light on circumstances under which mandatory price disclosure policies lower prices.
Read the paper:
Summary on
@ProMarket_org
:
Wir haben uns die Weitergabe des
#Tankrabatt
|s angeschaut.
Fazit bisher: Es wird viel weitergegeben, aber die Margen steigen noch stärker als bei der MwSt.-Senkung 2020.
Außerdem: Durchschnitte sind mit Vorsicht zu genießen, da es große Unterschiede zwischen Tankstellen gibt.
Thread zur Weitergabe des
#Tankrabatts
: Einschätzung mit Daten der ersten 2 Wochen.
Unsere Schätzungen (
@f_montag
) deuten auf stark gestiegene Gewinnmargen bei E5 und E10 hin.
Bei E5 wurde in absoluten Centbeträgen doppelt so viel einbehalten wie bei MWSt-Senkung 2020
1/n
@netflix
is celebrating this year‘s
@IIOC_IO
with a Seinfeld movie about competition in breakfast cereals. To reflect the state of the literature, prices take a back seat and it’s all about innovation. Featuring IO all stars Capt’n Crunch and Gen Mills:
Had the pleasure of giving a virtual seminar on “Mergers, Foreign Entry, and Jobs: Evidence from the U.S. Appliance Industry” at the 🇦🇹 Austrian Competition Authority
@BWB_WETTBEWERB
this week.
It’s a great group of economists and I benefited from many fruitful discussions!
If you wanted to know how what consumers know about prices affects competition and tax pass-through but think out paper is just too long, here‘s your chance!
👇Non-technical summary of our paper in ProMarket
@TuckSchool
@ECONMunich
@RationalityCRC
@StiglerCenter
Effectiveness of tax policy depends on whether sellers pass on changes in tax rates to consumers through changes in price. New research by
@f_montag
(
#StiglerAffiliate
), Robin Mamrak, Alina Sagimuldina,
@MonikaSchnitzer
investigates this tax pass-through:
I got to visit the Competition Tribunal
@TDLC_Chile
in Santiago yesterday and learned that economists can be judges in Chile (at least for competition)! Really interesting to learn how competition policy works around the world.
La Ministra Domper y economistas del TDLC se reunieron con economista Felix Montag, profesor asistente en la Tuck School of Business at Darmouth College y miembro asociado de Stigler Center at U. Chicago Booth Scholl of Business, quien ayer visitó el TDLC.
Looking forward to what promises to be an exciting panel on employment concerns in merger control!
I'll speak about what I found in my paper "Mergers, Foreign Competition, and Jobs" on how to think about jobs in product market mergers.
.
@f_montag
Research Focus: Industrial Organization, Applied Econometrics, Public & International Economics
JMP: Mergers, Foreign Entry, and Jobs: Evidence from the U.S. Appliance Industry
Supervisors:
@MonikaSchnitzer
, A Yurukoglu, Y Fan, F Waldinger
It has everything you should be looking for in a PhD program:
👩🔬 Stimulating and collaborative research environment
🛠️ Helping you learn all the tools to do great research
🏔️ Mountains, lakes and a great city (very high quality of life!!)
Can only recommend to apply!
Applications to our PhD program in Economics
@ECONMunich
are open!
You can find more information on the application process and the program here:
Deadline: January 31, 2023.
RT and apply!
Great post on the current state of the markups and market power literature and whether they went up or not.
Bottom-line: Lots of great work, yet we still don’t quite know!
You've probably heard market power is rising in the US. Everything is going to hell!
If you've wondering about some of the empirical evidence, this newsletter is for you 👇
A great thank you goes out to my extremely supportive committee
@MonikaSchnitzer
,
@ayurukog
, Ying Fan and Fabian Waldinger and everyone else at
@ECONM6
The
#EconJobMarket
was intense but a great way to meet new people and generate new ideas. I'm excited for the future ahead!
Dominant cycling team is proposing to merge with the team that has its No 1 competitor for next season and Amazon is rumored to become main sponsor of the new team.
What could possibly go wrong?
#AntitrustCycling
#EconTwitter
Can’t wait to meet this group in person, learn about their exciting research, and get feedback on my first new project as a
@StiglerCenter
Affiliate Fellow!
Very exciting program!
Looking forward to presenting our paper on consumer info, competition, and tax pass-through together w/ Alina Sagimuldina. First in-person conference since Covid!
(joint work w/
@MonikaSchnitzer
)
@tomaso_duso
erklärt warum Marktmacht zur unvollständigen Weitergabe des
#Tankrabatt
|s führen könnte.
Er bezieht sich hierbei auch auf Ergebnisse unserer Studie zur Weitergabe der MwSt.-Senkung an Tankstellen 2020 (w/ A. Sagimuldina &
@MonikaSchnitzer
)
@tomaso_duso
zum
#Tankrabatt
: Klare Darstellung, warum der Tankrabatt ein großer Blödsinn ist und bei hohen fiskalischen Kosten die falschen klima- & sicherheitspolitischen Anreize setzt nur wenig bei der Zielgruppe ankommen wird.
Some professional news...
Starting in July, I will be joining the economics department at Dartmouth – my alma mater, and home to so many of my closest mentors and friends.
It is bittersweet to be leaving Stanford, where I’ve learned a huge amount over the past several years.
Everyone is worried about concentration in markets. Is it actually increasing?
As usual for these big macro trends, it depends.
A 🧵 on the recent literature
@DSchindlerEcon
Felt the same (and still do a bit). Got many random videos after probably interacting with too much football stuff. What helped me was to retrain the algorithm a bit and spend ten minutes labelling stuff I don‘t want to see from my feed. Now I have more econ content again.
Call for papers for "The Non-Market Effects of Market Power" conference
Columbia Business School
April 13-14, 2023
Organized by
@DFoarta
,
@andreapratnyc
,
@ProfFionasm
& No Cowgill
Submit by January 17, 2023
📢📢
We are so happy to announce the new 2023
#StiglerAffiliate
Fellows at
@ChicagoBooth
, a multidisciplinary group of economists, business scholars, lawyers, and political scientists.
Read about them on
@ProMarket_org
: 🧵
@MitsuruIgami
Completely agreed. I benefitted immensely from your discussion and comments on what had been my JMP at IIOC two years ago, when streamlining it for submission. Thanks again for this!
Cool paper looking at historical wage markdowns in the Belgian coal industry.
Key finding: Employer associations can facilitate collusion and lead to higher markdowns.
🚨New working paper alert!🚨
“Monopsony and Industrialization”, joint work with Michael Rubens
@MichRubens
.
Available at SSRN:
A short summary:
(0/10)
#EconTwitter
#EconHis
Check out this JMP👀
Product mkt & employment effects of the Whirpool-Maytag merger.
Labor mkt issue is not monopsony but rather the impact on domestic employment compared to a foreign acquisition scenario.
Under the hood: frontier IO techniques, endogenous variety & price.
Honestly, my take on this potential merger is simple.
Firstly, I hope it doesn't negatively impact riders & staff.
Secondly, I hope it doesn't make a team too dominant to the point that it negatively impacts the entertainment of the sport.
Very very excited to see this paper finally online. My talk at
@ecb
's forum on Central Banking in Sintra is scheduled next Wednesday. In the meantime, here is a quick thread
Wer trägt die Kosten für
#CO2
-Preis auf
#Benzin
und
#Diesel
in 🇩🇪?
Fazit: Verbraucher mehr als Tankstellen. Weitergabe bei Diesel höher als bei Benzin.
Kurzer 🧵 von
@MonikaSchnitzer
zu unserer Studie mit Alina Sagimuldina 👇
At today's
@iipf2021
, I had the privilege to meet with 5 PhD students around the world. This was part of
#iipf2021
's new initiative matching junior and senior researchers in mentoring/networking sessions.
[When did I become a senior scholar?]
Thread on their great research 👇
Very much enjoyed the opportunity to present my paper on Mergers, Foreign Entry, and Jobs
@CMAgovUK
today!
Thanks to
@carmine_ornaghi
&
@ccp_uea
for including the paper in the program. Next time I hope to make it in person. Tomorrow will be another day of exciting presentations!
@tomaso_duso
Ein Teil der Erklärung ist wahrscheinlich, dass die Höhe des Tankrabatts zu Spillover-Effekten auf Nachbarländer geführt hat, die zu einer Überschätzung der Weitergaberaten führt. Das kann weder unsere Methode, noch die der anderen Studien lösen.
Siehe 👇
Interpretation: Für den Vergleich nutzen wir F. Auffällig ist, dass nach dem 1. Juni nicht nur in 🇩🇪, sondern auch in 🇫🇷 die Differenz zwischen Nettopreis und Rohölpreis deutlich anstieg. Deshalb überschätzt Vergleich mit 🇫🇷 jetzt möglicherweise die Weitergaberaten in 🇩🇪. 7/n
@BrianCAlbrecht
Great post! You might also be interested in Flaaen, Hortacsu,
@FelixTintelnot
‘s work on clothes washer tariffs. They do acknowledge that the 2018 tariffs may have created US manufacturing jobs but at a cost of $815k per year to US consumers:
@PGunigantiAT
Single industry study etc. but we have a recent study (theory & empirics) showing that more competition leads to higher pass-through. Important to remember for monopolist logic: we should see same for cost increase as for cost decrease
New version on tax pass-through and competition at ⛽️
In a nutshell:
If some consumers don‘t know all prices at all sellers, this gives sellers market power.
Share of informed consumers ⬆️ intensity of comp ⬆️ and tax pass-through ⬆️
Theory & evidence in the paper 👇
„Die Preisempfindlichkeit der Konsumenten könnte beeinflussen, wie stark die Mehrwertsteuersenkung letztendlich weitergegeben wird“
Artikel in der
@SZ
zu unserer
#Mehrwertsteuer
-Studie im Kraftstoffmarkt (w/ Alina Sagimuldina &
@MonikaSchnitzer
)
Kommt die Mehrwertsteuersenkung wirklich an? Ökonomen haben sich an den Tankstellen umgeschaut - und einen Effekt gefunden, der auch für andere Branchen gelten könnte.
@charliemurry
That‘s fair. I think (and that’s how I read Brian‘s blog post) that we know A LOT about the evolution of MP in many places as compared to 7-8 years ago. But there is still so much more we would want to know (particularly on determinants of MP), that there is a lot of work left.
@D_Langenmayr
Da es um das zu versteuernde Einkommen geht, sind es wohl eher 175-200k Haushaltseinkommen. Klar, Ersatzleistung, aber wo sind wir da in der Einkommensverteilung conditional on age? Top 10%? Top 5%? Konnte das jetzt auf Anhieb nicht finden.
@max_viskanic
Max - I think you know well that most who spike out now would not know that DG Comp has a chief econ, had FSM not been American. The current chief econ was even a fulltime consultant prior and nobody cared. FSM‘s work also shows her willingness to regulate tech.
Check out our new working paper on how fuel stations pass on the temporary VAT reduction as part of the German 2020 stimulus to consumers.
Pass-through is fast, but remains incomplete:
1/ Does Germany’s temporary VAT reduction as part of 2020 stimulus lead to lower prices for consumers? In a new study, we estimate pass-through rates in the fuel market.
We find pass-through is fast, but incomplete. Diesel drivers benefit most.
In graphs:
@OdendahlC
@MonikaSchnitzer
Eine gute Erklärung zum Anstieg der Nettopreis/Rohölpreis-Differenz um den 1. Juni in F kennen wir nicht. Die geschätzten Weitergaberaten könnten also durchaus zu hoch sein und die Weitergabe bei Diesel somit unvollständig. In jedem Fall sind E5 & E10 Margen stark gestiegen.
Working on economic research relevant to the interests of the
@CMAgovUK
?
@Clark96Fraser
and I are once again looking for speakers for our external seminar series, this time for the September-March term.
1/
@OdendahlC
@MonikaSchnitzer
Schwierig. Wenn man nur nation. Durchschnitte betrachte (wie zB ifo), gibt es wöchentliche Preise für alle EU Länder.
Nachteile:
1) Nachfrage & Kosten sind in weiter entfernten Ländern anders.
2) Aussage zur Dispersion der Weitergabe nur mit Daten auf Tankstellenebene möglich.
@OdendahlC
@MonikaSchnitzer
Durchaus möglich. Wir sehen so einen Anstieg im Kontrollland zum ersten Mal. Bei MwSt.-Senkung / -Erhöhung und bei der Remise Carburant in F haben sich die Margen im betroffenen Land allerdings auch weniger erhöht als jetzt. Spillover auf F sind also jetzt wahrscheinlicher.
@a_bergeaud
Not really, no. I would get it if it was the Commissioner but not for the Chief Economist. It’s advisory. There‘s also a full team of economists that would probably rebel if there was a big US-bias.
@florianederer
On (2) we (w/ Alina Sagimuldina and
@MonikaSchnitzer
) are currently working on a paper (theory + empirics) on price sensitivity and commodity tax pass-through.
We find that more price sensitive consumers -> more intense comp. -> more pass-through.
Link:
Implications?
▶️Jobs can have first order welfare effect in prod mkt mergers
▶️Entrant identity & jobs can change which merger best for domestic welfare
▶️NOT advocating for anti-comp mergers
▶️Better: Identify mergers where jobs matter & pair with lab mkt policies10/10
Warum sollte
@adidas
dem
@DFB
überhaupt Geld bieten, wenn dieser keinen Konkurrenten auswählen dürfen soll?
In diesem Fall führt Wettbewerb zu mehr Mittel für die Sportförderung und nächstes Mal bietet
@adidas
vielleicht wieder mehr.
#DFB
und
#Adidas
: Der deutsche
#Fu
ßball war immer auch ein Stück deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Die
#Nationalelf
spielt in drei Streifen - das war so klar, wie dass der Ball rund ist und ein Spiel 90 Minuten dauert. Die Erfolgsgeschichte begann 1954 mit dem unvergessenen
Can't stop thinking about this:
"Wir reden von Armut" - "We're talking about poverty"
said Robert Habeck, German vice chancellor and economic minister of economy and climate
@BMWK
No, he was not reflecting on the fate of 2 million who have fled Ukraine in as many weeks, ...
@BrianCAlbrecht
It‘s a very long read but I thought you were quite nuanced. Giving credit to DLEU for making progress on a difficult problem while recognizing the (many) limitations. Same goes for industry studies as you point out. I enjoyed the read.
@Ricardo_Duque_
@marcia_lpereira
@BernardinoTiago
@JNQuelhas
Btw, we see the same around the tax increase in our gasoline tax paper. We just cut out the two weeks pre tax change and run a diff-in-diff with early December vs January (omitting second half of Dec). Anyways, very interesting paper!
@vectornomist
@jiboncom
And I thought I was helping fight non-response in surveys... Now I am wondering how many of the Nielsen subjects are just social scientists, trying to generate data.
Main results (employment):
▶️More U.S. jobs maintained after WP acquisition
▶️Job effects driven by relocation (different offshoring), not reallocation to competitors
▶️Avg yr job value of $136k to $316k necessary to offset consumer harm for washers (lower for other prods)9/10
@superwuster
No real price calculator but a paper that studies this as a motive for firms to use subscription models and explores how measures currently discussed by the FTC would affect that biz model:
Simulate acquisitions of Maytag by Whirlpool and Haier (no prod mkt overlap, more offshoring).
Estimate endogenous product portfolio choice
Domestic jobs depend on production location & quantities in prod mkt7/10
@Ricardo_Duque_
@marcia_lpereira
@BernardinoTiago
@JNQuelhas
Thanks for the clarification! That makes sense. I would perhaps make that slightly more explicit then. Not sure you can speak of pass-through of 70% at the increase if this excludes price increases before the date.
BONUS: I learned that employment considerations can be part of merger proceedings in Austria. It was very helpful to hear how the results intersect with their enforcement experience.
Thanks again for having me!
@marcia_lpereira
@BernardinoTiago
@JNQuelhas
@Ricardo_Duque_
Looks really cool! I didn’t dig into the paper too closely, so forgive me if the answer is there, but what I find most surprising as compared to the lit is that you find a higher pass-through of tax decrease than increase. Is that right? Do you have a theory why that is?
Product mkt mergers can affect jobs, particularly if some produce offshore. How to think about this?
Structural model to assess how a prod mkt merger affects product entry, consumer welfare, and domestic jobs.
Application: 2006 merger between Whirlpool & Maytag in U.S.2/10
Background:
Haier wanted to enter 🇺🇸 appliance market by buying
#2
Maytag. Planned to offshore production to 🇨🇳.
#1
Whirlpool outbid Haier.
DoJ cleared WP/MT arguing potential entry from 🇰🇷 LG & Samsung prevents price ⬆️.
Main concern: Clothes washers & dryers3/10
@OdendahlC
@MonikaSchnitzer
Ist möglich. Evtl gibt es Gewichte, die die Entwicklung vor dem 1. Juni matched. Der Donor Pool ist aber klein und es ist schwierig zu begründen warum die gleichen Gewichte auch richtig für die kontrafaktische Entwicklung nach dem 1.6. ist. Ich wäre auch da vorsichtig.
📢 JMP Thread 📢
“Mergers, Foreign Entry, and Jobs: Evidence from the U.S. Appliance Industry”
Should merger control consider domestic employment effects of product mkt mergers?
JMP Link:
👇 A short thread on my JMP
@max_viskanic
This was a campaign with which some wanted to increase their own popular approval ratings at the expense of getting a super competent chief econ.
@OdendahlC
@MonikaSchnitzer
Öffentlich verfügbare Daten zu allen Preisänderungen auf Tankstellenebene gibt es, soweit ich weiß, in der EU / UK nur für DE und FR.
Wöchentliche Preise gibt es beim Weekly Oil Bulletin der EU, aber da wäre ich mit der Interpretation noch vorsichtiger als bei DE/FR Vergleich.
Will Biden’s tax holiday on fuel make a difference for consumers? Our study (
@f_Montag
) on a temporary tax cut in the German fuel market in 2020 shows: this depends on how much consumers search for lower prices. A thread. 1/n
@jasonfurman
@florianederer