My research focuses on how imperfect markets function and the instances in which such imperfections can create public policy concerns. I have studied several market factors that contribute to firms’ ability to charge supra-competitive prices or engage in other anticompetitive behaviors; an important element of my analyses is the modeling of how firms engage and consumers perceive/value product differentiation. More recently, I am interested in modeling consumers’ preferences for nutrients and stockpiling behavior with the aim to better understand the trend for the consumption of less healthy foods; the ultimate objective of his work is to provide recommendations for more effective policy interventions that can curb obesity. Most of my work uses detailed scanner-level data from supermarkets across the US covering dozens of consumer packaged goods over several years. I heavily rely on many computational methods to deal with the large datasets and complex estimation techniques that my work requires.
