#EconSky 🚨NEW PAPER with Ben Casner: We present a theory of why privacy regulation can be distributionally bad when platforms offer freemium models

CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER

#EconSky My first publication is looking like it might be a good one!

What people think I'm doing when I say I'm "working on my egg paper" vs what I'm actually doing

"We thank the anonymous referees for their constructive feedback. In addressing their comments, we feel we have significantly improved the soup"

Catherine Rampell@crampell.bsky.social · 2y ago

This defeats the entire purpose of soup, which is that it’s wet www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/...

#EconSky Note: my online seminar on "Open(?) AI" has been **rescheduled** to Jan 27 because of the holiday. Thread describing the paper below! bsky.app/profile/leis...

Matthew Leisten@leistenecon.bsky.social · 2y ago

🚨 #EconSky New paper! There's been much advocacy for “open” or “open-weights” AI models. But what are the equilibrium predictions relative to closed AI or a social planner? The econ of AI is new and distinct from other software, so we need new models. That’s where I come in!

📉📈 I'm giving a (virtual) talk on "Open(?) AI" hosted by BU Questrom next month! Details/registration at the link, description of the paper below! www.bu.edu/dbi/events/o... bsky.app/profile/did:...

Matthew Leisten@leistenecon.bsky.social · 2y ago

🚨 #EconSky New paper! There's been much advocacy for “open” or “open-weights” AI models. But what are the equilibrium predictions relative to closed AI or a social planner? The econ of AI is new and distinct from other software, so we need new models. That’s where I come in!

Made my schedule for #ASSA2025! Fully expecting to be able to attend all these sessions by bending time and logic to my will

#EconSky I'll be at ASSAs next week! Feel free to hit me up if you want to drink coffee and chat research, and be sure to check out this exciting, inter-field session I organized:

www.routledge.com/Game-Theory-...

Game Theory for Applied Econometricians: Data Analytics with R

Over the last 30 years the practice and use of game theory has changed dramatically, yet textbooks continue to present game theory with algebraic formalism and toy models. This book, on the other hand...

routledge.com

📉📈 I'm giving a (virtual) talk on "Open(?) AI" hosted by BU Questrom next month! Details/registration at the link, description of the paper below! www.bu.edu/dbi/events/o... bsky.app/profile/did:...

Matthew Leisten@leistenecon.bsky.social · 2y ago

🚨 #EconSky New paper! There's been much advocacy for “open” or “open-weights” AI models. But what are the equilibrium predictions relative to closed AI or a social planner? The econ of AI is new and distinct from other software, so we need new models. That’s where I come in!

Don't forget to register for the #ASSA2025 Annual Meeting in San Francisco! Early bird registration ends tomorrow, Dec. 3. Register now! #econsky aeaweb.org/conference/

#econsky What is, in your opinion, the biggest question IO has credibly settled? Seems most of our contributions are either (a) fancy methods; (b) negative results (e.g. don't regress price on HHI); (c) narrow in scope (yogurts, etc); or (d) contested (have markups actually risen?)

Just finished SouthernEconJ meetings. There were, by my count, ten IO papers presented written or co-written by FTC economists 💪 A few of them 👇

8 mostly obvious tips to do research outside of academia (specifically, in gov't):

🚨 #EconSky New paper! There's been much advocacy for “open” or “open-weights” AI models. But what are the equilibrium predictions relative to closed AI or a social planner? The econ of AI is new and distinct from other software, so we need new models. That’s where I come in!

Because I'm still a Bluesky novice, tagging #EconSky for this summary of my year in papers!

Matthew Leisten@leistenecon.bsky.social · 2y ago

Apropos of nothing, ten papers I've seen this year that I still think about: 1. Improving the matching mechanism for heart transplants didn't reduce mortality too much, because doctors responded by getting choosier. drive.google.com/file/d/1Xk8U...

Apropos of nothing, ten papers I've seen this year that I still think about: 1. Improving the matching mechanism for heart transplants didn't reduce mortality too much, because doctors responded by getting choosier. drive.google.com/file/d/1Xk8U...

#EconSky newly updated paper! [Link at end of thread] The premise of this one is simple: what if IO tried to take inequality more seriously? Let's thread the needle by having different price coefficients reflect "shadow value of a dollar" to rich & poor but stopping short of true income effects.

Still figuring out this platform and forgot to tag #EconSky for this thread 👇

Matthew Leisten@leistenecon.bsky.social · 2y ago

A thread about my [former] JMP and why research is frustrating. This paper hasn't found a home [yet] but I stand by its main methodological contribution. And I'm constantly on the cusp of making the paper better.

A thread about my [former] JMP and why research is frustrating. This paper hasn't found a home [yet] but I stand by its main methodological contribution. And I'm constantly on the cusp of making the paper better.

🚨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"!

New revision!📈📉 In the previous version (link to thread), we showed linked regulation (increasing scrutiny of past offenders AND of plants co-owned w/ past offenders) was good. Now, we provide more insight *why*. Essentially, there are 2 effects. https://x.com/LeistenEcon/status/1638246436587315

The good news is negative weights are fine so you all can do TWFE again

Ben Golub@bengolub.bsky.social · 2y ago

One example of a negative probability, which Taleb mentions here, is the probability of learning anything from this word salad

Hello #EconSky! Giving this platform a try. Expect updates about the topics I care about most: 1️⃣ Incorporating redistributive concerns into how we do IO 2️⃣ Competition in the algorithmic age: pricing algos, open weights AI, etc. 3️⃣ Regulation under incomplete info ...more to come!