Upcoming
Thursday, March 16
Location: 425 Shillman Hall
Time: 3:00 pm – 4:15 pm
Field: IO
Website: https://alexandermackay.org/#
“Dynamic Pricing and Demand Volatility: Evidence from Restaurant Food Delivery”
Alexander Mackay, Harvard Business School
Abstract: Pricing technology that allows firms to rapidly adjust prices has two potential benefits. Prices can respond more rapidly to demand shocks, leading to higher revenues. On the other hand, time-varying prices can be used to smooth out demand across periods, reducing costs in markets with capacity constraints. Using data from the staggered adoption of a pricing algorithm, we measure the impacts of time-varying pricing in the context of restaurant food delivery. On average, the pricing algorithm reduced prices, though it led to substantial variation in prices within and across days. We find that the adoption of time-varying pricing reduced demand volatility, resulting in a relative increase in the share of transactions occurring during low-demand periods. Consumers appear to strategically time purchases at high frequencies and also across days of the week. We estimate that the volatility semi-elasticity, which we define to reflect the relationship between time-series variation in quantities and prices, is −1.96. Our results point to the potential efficiency gains of time-varying pricing when firms face capacity constraints.

Past Research Seminars
- Elizabeth Cascio, Professor of Economics and DeWalt H. 1921 and Marie H. Ankeny Professorship in Economic Policy presented on December 1, 2022 (12:00 pm – 1:15 pm), in 322 Hayden.
- Rodrigo Pinto, Assistant Professor of Economics at UCLA and a research affiliate of the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group (HCEO) presented on November 29, 2022, 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm via Zoom.
- Pierre-Alexandre Balland, Utrecht University, presented The new paradigm of economic complexity on November 10, 2022 (12:00 pm – 1:15 pm) in Shillman 415.
- Wayne Sandholtz, Assistant Professor of Economics at Nova School of Business and Economics, presented Secondary school access raises primary school achievement in Tanzania on November 2, 2022 (12:00 pm – 1:15 pm) in Shillman 420.
- Daniel Björkegren, Assistant Professor of Economics, Brown University, presented Causal Inference from Hypothetical Evaluations on October 26, 2022, 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm. in 221 Hayden.
March 21 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) | Meri Davlasheridze, assistant professor at Texas A&M University at Galveston. Meri will present her paper The persistent effect of natural disasters on Opioid deaths. | Zoom Meeting |
Mar 7, 2022 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) | Ross Levine, Chair in Banking and Finance at Haas School of Business, UC Berkley, will present his paper Selection into Entrepreneurship and Self-employment. | Zoom Meeting |
December 6 11:45 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. |
Yu Xiao, Associate Professor in the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University (PSU)
“Community Businesses as Social Units in Post-Disaster Recovery” |
Zoom Meeting |
November 8, 12:00 – 1:15pm |
Jose Berrospide, Chief of Financial Institutions Risk Evaluation Section at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
“Un-used Bank Capital Buffers and Credit Supply Shocks at SMEs during the Pandemic” |
Zoom Meeting |
October 21 | Yongqiang Chu, Distinguished Professor of Economics at University of North Carolina
“Political Risk and Toxic Release” |
Zoom Meeting |
November 8 | Jose Berrospide, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System “Un-used Bank Capital Buffers and Credit Supply Shocks at SMEs during the Pandemic” |
Zoom Meeting |
November 29 | Yu Xiao, University of Portland | 316 Lake Hall |
Thursday, April 29, 11:45 am – 1:15 pm |
Gangs, Labor Mobility and Development
Maria Micaela Sviatschi is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Princeton University. Her research interests are labor and development economics, with a focus on human capital, gender-violence and crime. |
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Thursday, April 15, 12:00 – 1:15 pm |
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October 26
- Justin Gallagher, Montana State University
November 16
- Gautam Rao, Harvard
The Economic Consequences of Increasing Sleep Among the Urban Poor
November 23
- Jenny Aker, Tufts
Harvesting the rain: The adoption of environmental technologies in the Sahel
- September 19 Nidhiya Menon
The Brazilian Bombshell? The Long-Term Impact of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic the South American WayBrandeis University - September 23 Michael Kremer
Is Development Innovation a Good Investment? Which Innovations Scale? Evidence on Social Investing from USAID’s Development Innovation VenturesHarvard University - October 7 Florian Ederer
Killer AcquisitionsYale University - November 7 Leila Agha
Drug Diffusion through Peer Networks: Evidence from Industry PaymentsDartmouth College
January 24 (Thursday) | Shahid Alam | Northeastern |
February 7 (Thursday) | Kevin Boudreau | Northeastern |
February 11 (Monday) | Michael Mueller-Smith | University of Michigan |
February 21 (Thursday) | Felipe Barrera | Harvard |
February 25 (Monday) | Klaus Desmet | Southern Methodist University |
March 14 (Thursday) | David Atkin | MIT |
CANCELED March 21 (Thursday) will be rescheduled for the Fall series. | Jonathan Zinman | Dartmouth |
April 4 (Thursday) | David Yang | Harvard |
April 8 (Monday) | Judith Chevalier | Yale |
April 18 (Thursday) | James Nason | North Carolina State |
April 22 (Monday) | Alicia Sasser Modestino | Northeastern |
17-Sep | Nina Pavcnik | Dartmouth College |
24-Sep | Chloe East | University of Colorado, Denver |
1-Oct | Matt Lowe | Briq Institute of Behavior & Inequality |
11-Oct | Chang-Jin Kim | University of Washington |
22-Oct | Adriaan Soetevent | Groningen University |
5-Nov | Rebecca Thornton | University of Illinois |
8-Nov | Heikki Rantakari | University of Rochester |
15-Nov | Peter Hull | University of Chicago |
19-Nov | Ludovica Gazze | University of Chicago |
28-Nov | Arindrajit Dube | (U-Mass Amherst) |
29-Nov | Andrew Foster | Brown |
6-Dec | Jere Berhman | U Penn |
- February 22, 2018 Ariel Dora Stern, HBS
- February 26, 2018 Rebecca Thornton, University of Illinois
- March 14, 2018 Alicia Sasser Modestino, Northeastern University
- March 19, 2018 Leemore Dafny, HBS
- March 29, 2018 John Maluccio, Middlebury Development
- April 2, 2018 Debi Prasad Mohapatra, Umass Amherst IO
- April 9, 2018 Rafael Dix Carneiro, Duke Development/Trade
18-Sep | Chris Udry | Northwestern University |
2-Oct | Enrico Spolaore | Tufts |
30-Oct | Seema Jayachandran | Northwestern |
8-Nov | Petra Moser | New York University School of Business |
13-Nov | Stephen O’Connell | Post-Doctoral Fellow at MIT SEII |
4-Dec | Bruce Sacerdote | Dartmouth College |
11-Dec | Tanya Byker | Middlebury College |