Highlighted Publications




 

Bhattacharya, Illanes, and Stillerman (2026) ask how mergers affect consumer prices and whether U.S. antitrust enforcement effectively identifies harmful mergers. They examine 129 consumer product markets involved in 47 mergers from 2006 to 2017, using NielsenIQ retail scanner data. They find that mergers increased prices by only 0.4% on average, but effects varied substantially. Twenty-five percent of mergers raised prices by more than 3.9%, while another quarter reduced pri

Ainsworth, Liu, and Penner (2026) asked whether adopting a four-day school week changes teacher turnover in the short and long term. They analyzed administrative records for all public school employees in Oregon from 2006–2007 through 2023–2024, using a difference-in-differences research design to estimate the policy’s causal effects. They found that schools adopting a four-day week experienced a 2.0 percentage point increase in teacher turnover. This included a 0.7 percentag

Buehler et al. (2026) asked how physician incomes compare across the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, and Sweden, and whether higher US physician pay reflects physicians’ relative position in the income distribution or higher incomes at comparable income levels. They analyzed administrative tax records covering nearly all physicians in each country. They found that physicians ranked among the highest earners everywhere, but US physicians earned much more. Eighty-four p

Agniel et al. (2026) asked whether Medicare’s 2020 decision to cover methadone treatment for opioid use disorder changed how opioid treatment programs operated and whether it expanded access to care. They analyzed national administrative data on treatment facilities (2015–2023) and treatment episodes using difference-in-differences methods. They found that opioid treatment programs were 45.4 percentage points more likely to accept Medicare after the policy, nearly doubling pa