Events

Academic Research Seminars

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.

Spring 2023 Seminar Schedule

Seminar Organizers

 

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.
Thursday,
April 15, 12:00 – 1:15 pm
Police Force Size and Civilian Race

Morgan Williams, Jr. (Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University)  presented, “Police Force Size and Civilian Race.”

Co-authors are Aaron Chalfin (Department of Criminology, University of Pennsylvania), Benjamin Hansen (Department of Economics, University of Oregon, NBER, IZA), and Emily K. Weisburst (Luskin School of Public Affairs, University of California Los Angeles).

October 26

Weathering an Unexpected Financial Shock: The Role of Cash Grants on Household Finance and Business Survival

November 16

The Economic Consequences of Increasing Sleep Among the Urban Poor

November 23

Harvesting the rain: The adoption of environmental technologies in the Sahel

February 27

Kasey Buckles

University of Notre Dame

https://www3.nd.edu/~kbuckles/

  •  September 19  Nidhiya Menon
    The Brazilian Bombshell? The Long-Term Impact of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic the South American Way    Brandeis University
  • September 23  Michael Kremer
    Is Development Innovation a Good Investment? Which Innovations Scale? Evidence on Social Investing from USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures    Harvard 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