Alex MacKay
@amackay.bsky.social
📤 809
📥 193
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Economist and professor at the University of Virginia. www.alexandermackay.org
reposted by
Alex MacKay
New NBER WP on algorithmic "coercion." Unlike collusion, coercion can be achieved by a single firm's pricing algorithm. It can be worse for consumers than collusion.
@nber.org
5 months ago
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Several observations related to pricing, current technology, and consumer welfare, in this New York Times article.
add a skeleton here at some point
29 days ago
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reposted by
Alex MacKay
Ben Casselman
30 days ago
Same product. Same store. Same time. But on Instacart, different customers may see different prices. My story on a fascinating new experiment from
@groundwork.bsky.social
&
@consumerreports.org
and how the idea of a single price is breaking down in the digital age:
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/b...
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Same Product, Same Store, but on Instacart, Prices Might Differ
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/business/instacart-algorithmic-pricing.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7U8.D3oN.PK4SkK01idO0&smid=url-share
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reposted by
Alex MacKay
NBER
5 months ago
New evidence from a field experiment finds that Amazon brands generate positive benefits to consumers, despite having similar substitutes and receiving priority in search rankings, from Chiara Farronato, Andrey Fradkin, and
@amackay.bsky.social
https://www.nber.org/papers/w34135
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Using a field experiment, we studied how consumers valued Amazon brands and the extent of self-preferencing by Amazon. We found that Amazon brands bring benefits to consumers, even though they receive a modest prioritization in search rankings.
5 months ago
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With unique data from a large global manufacturer, we were able to study how product markups vary along the supply chain and over time. One thing that surprised us: though manufacturer and retail markups bounce up and down, total (manufacturer + retail) markups are stable.
5 months ago
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reposted by
Alex MacKay
NBER
5 months ago
Pricing algorithms that provide a speed advantage and commitment can be worse for consumers than full collusion, from Zach Y. Brown and Alexander MacKay
https://www.nber.org/papers/w34070
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New NBER WP on algorithmic "coercion." Unlike collusion, coercion can be achieved by a single firm's pricing algorithm. It can be worse for consumers than collusion.
@nber.org
5 months ago
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Rivals' prices, and the ability to monitor them, play a special role in pricing algorithms. Zach Brown and I discuss the research and the implications in the latest CPI Antitrust Chronicle on Surveillance Pricing. Read the article here:
tinyurl.com/2pj93aat
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https://tinyurl.com/2pj93aat
6 months ago
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New paper on “Algorithmic Coercion”: We find that a single firm using a pricing algorithm can induce its rivals to set substantially higher prices, even when rivals maximize short-run profits and cannot collude.
8 months ago
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I want to take a moment to share some UVA pride: this week, my colleague Emma Harrington received one of the four AEJ Best Paper Awards from the American Economic Association, for her AEJ: Applied paper with Natalia Emanuel on remote work. As we say down in Cville, Wahoo-wa!
9 months ago
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reposted by
Alex MacKay
John McLaren
9 months ago
Hey two "best papers" from UVA Econ! I don't mind bragging a bit! Congrats to Emma and
@amackay.bsky.social
!
www.aeaweb.org/about-aea/ho...
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AEJ Best Paper Awards
https://www.aeaweb.org/about-aea/honors-awards/aej-best-papers
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reposted by
Alex MacKay
Martin Gaynor
9 months ago
100% what
@florianederer.bsky.social
said - big congratulations to all of the
@aeajournals.bsky.social
Best Paper award winners, especially Zach Brown &
@amackay.bsky.social
for their terrific paper on
#algorithms
and
#competition
!
#economics
#AI
#econsky
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reposted by
Alex MacKay
Florian Ederer
9 months ago
Congratulations to all the winners, especially to Zach Brown &
@amackay.bsky.social
for their work on algorithmic pricing.
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Forthcoming at the Journal of Political Economy: We find that consumer product markups increased more than 25 percent from 2006 to 2019. One contribution is an approach to estimate IO-style models at scale, yielding flexible consumer preferences and estimates of marginal costs.
10 months ago
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People are paying a lot more attention to US government procurement data. The raw entries you get from
usaspending.gov
[or "FPDS"] are not very accurate. They are often off by an order of magnitude. Here's a procedure to get a better measure.
alexandermackay.org/files/Append...
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https://alexandermackay.org/files/Appendix%20-%20Measurement%20Error%20in%20US%20Procurement%20Data.pdf
11 months ago
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Happy to see this paper with
@natehmiller.bsky.social
in print! In the paper, we address identification of the price coefficient in models of supply and demand. We show how a covariance restriction between demand and cost shocks can resolve endogeneity.
www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
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Estimating Models of Supply and Demand: Instruments and Covariance Restrictions
(February 2025) - We consider the identification of empirical models of supply and demand with imperfect competition. We show that a restriction on the covariance between unobserved demand and cost sh...
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mic.20230024
11 months ago
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reposted by
Alex MacKay
Jonathan Colmer
about 1 year ago
The Environmental Inequality Lab is hiring 2 new pre-docs to join our team! We do research in environmental economics but those with interests in labor/public/urban/spatial/development economics should def apply. Apply here:
tinyurl.com/EIL-pre-doc
@AereOrg
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Pre-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Economics and Frank Batten School of Leadership & Public Policy in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America | Research at University of Virginia
Apply for Pre-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Economics and Frank Batten School of Leadership & Public Policy job with University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America. Res...
https://tinyurl.com/EIL-pre-doc
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reposted by
Alex MacKay
Jeff Gortmaker
about 1 year ago
Hey
#EconSky
, I'm on the job market with an
#EconJMP
about open source software. OSS is a global public good, widely used and provided by the private sector, but the target of recent industrial policy. Paper:
jeffgortmaker.com/files/Open_S...
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reposted by
Alex MacKay
Tim Bresnahan
about 1 year ago
Nathan Miller has been appointed Chief Economist of the Antitrust Division. A great appointment. I note with particular pleasure that before becoming an academic, he was a Staff Economist in the Antitrust Division.
www.nathanhmiller.org
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Nathan Miller | Professor, Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business and Department of Economics | Economist -- Antitrust Division (U.S. DOJ)
Nathan Miller
https://www.nathanhmiller.org/
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A summary of two studies that look at the supply and demand factors behind price changes in consumer products over the period 2006 to 2023. Touches on markups and inflation. Thank you UVA for featuring our research.
as.virginia.edu/investigatin...
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Investigating Markups: Evidence of Greedflation?
Prices for consumer goods have rapidly increased in recent years. At the same time, some corporations are reporting record profits. Coincidence? A UVA economist’s research may offer some answers.
https://as.virginia.edu/investigating-markups-evidence-greedflation
about 1 year ago
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reposted by
Alex MacKay
Matthew Leisten
about 1 year ago
🚨Just updated! 📈📉 Algorithmic pricing = automated pricing. This can soften competition, in large part because automation X commitment. But what if managers can override the algorithm, so commitment is diminished? Algos can still "collude"!
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reposted by
Alex MacKay
Seema Jayachandran
over 1 year ago
A useful suggestion when I asked how to avoid my feed being dominated by a few very frequent posters was the Quiet Posters feed.
bsky.app/profile/why....
A satisfying one-feed solution doesn't seem to exist (at least yet). None are perfect, so I toggle between a few, including this one.
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reposted by
Alex MacKay
Jakob Schneebacher
over 1 year ago
I am trying to be more active on here, and have not yet seen an IO or org econ starter pack, so here is an attempt at one:
go.bsky.app/Rchu8QX
Please shout out if I have forgotten someone, or when others join.
#EconSky
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🚨We are hiring two postdocs for AY 24-25 at the Pricing Lab at Harvard/HBS. The position is open to those with and without AP offers. You can work with industry data alongside Alberto Cavallo (macro side of the lab) and myself. Link for microeconomics:
academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/12981
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Postdoctoral Fellow - Pricing Lab (Micro) - Digital, Data, and Design Institute, Harvard University
The Digital, Data, and Design (D^3) Institute at Harvard is accepting applications for multiple postdoctoral fellows for academic year 2024-2025 to work on research activities at our research labs. D^...
https://academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/12981
about 2 years ago
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Are online prices higher because of pricing algorithms? Here we provide a high-level summary of the recent economic literature (see footnotes for papers):
www.brookings.edu/articles/are...
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Are online prices higher because of pricing algorithms? | Brookings
Zach Brown and Alexander MacKay discuss the nuanced effects technological advances and pricing algorithms have had on creating fair and competitive markets online.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/are-online-prices-higher-because-of-pricing-algorithms/
over 2 years ago
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