Working Papers

We construct a longitudinal data-set of news and media websites to study how online content providers adapted their responses to the GDPR over time, and whether restrictions on online tracking enforced by the regulation affected downstream outcomes such as the quantity of content those websites offer to their visitors and visitors’ engagement with such content. We find robust evidence of websites’ reactions to the GDPR in both the US and the EU. However, reactions differ between US and EU websites. We find a small reduction in average page views per visitor on EU websites relative to US websites near the end of the period of observation, but no statistically significant impact of the regulation on EU websites’ provision of new content, social media engagement with new content, and ranking in both the short-term and the long-term.
See below for working paper, and video of presentation at the FTC PrivacyCon’22.
Work in Progress, 2022
PDF Video

We study the impact of increasing online intermediation in legacy industries. We motivate the empirical analysis with a duopoly model where an intermediary platform enables firms to attract consumers from competitors by offering them higher benefits. We show the intermediary can induce firm to join, even when they cannot expect benefits from joining. Additionally, as the popularity of the platform raises, it can extract a growing proportion of the benefits it creates. The analysis focuses on restaurants’ adoption of OpenTable in New York City. Results support the model predictions of cost pass-through to consumers of fees charged to restaurants, and no effect of adoption on restaurant survival.
See below for working paper and video of presentation at the StartML Workshop @ NeurIPS’21
Manuscript, 2022
PDF Video

We present the design and the pilot results of a large-scale field experiment on the economic impact of ad-blocking and anti-tracking technologies on consumers’ behavior and economic outcomes. The online advertising industry has often heralded the economic benefits of (targeted) online advertising. Its claims are juxtaposed by the privacy concerns associated with the vast number of ad-tech companies tracking and analyzing consumers’ online behavior – often without consumers’ awareness. We analyze the economic impact of ad-blocking and anti-tracking technologies, focusing on consumers’ online behaviors (such as browsing and shopping), and their ultimate purchasing outcomes (as measured by amounts of money spent online, product prices paid, time spent on product searching, and purchase satisfaction). In this paper, we describe the rationale and motivations behind our study; the experimental design and the instrumentation infrastructure we developed for the experiments; the results of three pilots of the study; and the plans for the complete data collection.
See below for working paper, and video of presentation at the Economics of Digital Services EODS Economics of Digital Services Inaugural Research Symposium.
Work in Progress, 2021
PDF Video

Selected Publications

This study analyzes how scientists on Twitter react to high-visibility events. Using a longitudinal sample of 17,157 scientists and a matching-based framework, why study how unusual visibility events affect users’ subsequent behaviors and long-term visibility on the platform.
In ICWSM’22, 2022
PDF

We study firm performance in the semiconductor industry after the introduction of the integrated circuit, comparing the outcomes experienced by diversifying firms and new entrants across different clusters. Over the long term, succesful firms were disproportionately Spinoffs of leading firms, or diversifiers with a transistor background. New firms in Silicon Valley were more likely to enter at the technological frontier. However, over the long term, location had no significance on becoming a top producer.
In Industrial and Corporate Change, 2015
PDF

We study firm entry and inventor mobility in the Semiconductor Industry. Our results show most of the increased inventor mobility in Silicon Valley is due to inventors moving from parents to spinoffs, or from incumbents to recent entrants. Incumbents in Silicon Valley don’t seem to benefit from the greater mobility of inventors in the cluster, as they don’t hire inventors at a higer rate than incumbents in other regions, while they lose many inventors that leave to join new firms.
In Management Science, 2015
PDF

Work in Progress

How race and gender stereotypes impact crowdfunding outcomes

Assessing the Costs and Benefits of Ad-Blocking Technologies Using Incentive Compatible Mechanisms

Economic Grounds for Regulating Behavioral Ads

The Impact of the Apple Tracking Transparency Framework on the App Ecosystem

Teaching

Networks II: Market Design

This course covers different mathematical models to understand how markets operate and how we can design them to influence agents’ behavior and produce the outcomes we need. We also explore what defines network economies, multi-sided markets, and platforms.

*Cornell University (Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022)

Privacy and Security in the Data Economy

The course is structured around three broad topics. We first study how privacy has been understood over time, and how the economic analysis of privacy has evolved as the use of computing and connectivity has increased. We will next turn to the behavioral economics of privacy, to incorporate how human behavior influences the analysis of privacy. Finally, we will analyze how different economic theories can explain seemingly counter-intuitive patterns in information security.

Cornell University (Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022)

Information Systems Project

This is the capstone project course of the Master of Information System Management program at the Heinz College at CMU. As faculty advisor I worked with teams of students designing and implementing an information system for an external client.

Carnegie Mellon University (Fall 2018)

Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship

I co-developed this class with other faculty at P. Universidad Catolica de Chile, and faculty from UC Berkeley’s Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology. Students are required to develop a technology based entrepreneurial idea and produce a prototype and pitch for their project. The course finishes up in a competition where winners received seed funding for their projects (~US$7,500/project). In my two semesters teaching this course, several teams of my students went on to win the competition.

Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (Fall 2015, Spring 2016)

Technology, Policy, and Society

This course was part of the core curriculum of the Master in Energy program at P. Universidad Catolica de Chile. It covered topics on science and technology policy that are relevant to energy professional, and tools for analyzing complex problems in their social, technical, and economic dimensions.

Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (Fall 2015, Spring 2016)

The Strategy and Management of Technological Innovation

This course is part of the core curriculum of the Master in Engineering & Technology Innovation Management at CMU. It is case-based method course that covers several different analytical frameworks for studying technology management problems, and for supporting decision-making.

Carnegie Mellon University (Fall 2013, Fall 2014)

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