Job Market Paper
Technological Fragmentation and Labor Market Competition
Job Market Paper
When firms adopt different technologies, workers accumulate system-specific
skills that reshape labor market competition. I develop a dynamic model of
labor supply with on-the-job technology training, using novel instruments
from hospital staffing shocks to separately identify worker preferences and
firm screening in the nursing labor market.
Paper
Slides
BibTeX
Abstract
Firm technology choices shape how firms hire and train workers. Technologically-specific skills also shape how firms compete over workers. To what extent does technological fragmentation create horizontal differentiation among workplaces and drive labor market power? I study this question in the context of electronic health record systems in the healthcare industry. First, I use job postings and a direct survey of nurses to show heterogeneity across electronic health record systems creates meaningful differentiation in the nursing labor market. Nurses report being unwilling to switch technologies and suggest that they would search for a new job or require additional compensation. Next, I show that work experience with specific technologies becomes a meaningful predictor of worker mobility patterns after hospitals adopt these technologies—the friction from switching systems is approximately equivalent to adding 10–15 miles of distance between hospitals. Motivated by this evidence, I extend a discrete choice model of worker labor supply to a dynamic setting by allowing forward-looking workers to gain on-the-job work experience and to move across firms. I estimate the present-discounted value of the technological friction to be nearly $23,000. Technological differentiation makes firms more likely to retain existing workers but less likely to poach workers from other firms. I estimate that this additional differentiation generated an 8.0% increase in markdowns and a 5.2% decrease in wages.
Publications
with Amy Finkelstein and Matthew Gentzkow
Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 140, November 2025
We develop and estimate a dynamic model of risky prescription opioid use to
unpack person- and place-specific drivers of the opioid epidemic and assess
the impact of state pain-clinic laws.
Paper
Slides
BibTeX
Abstract
We develop and estimate a dynamic model of risky prescription opioid use that allows us to unpack the role of person- and place-specific drivers of the opioid epidemic and to assess the impact of state opioid policies. Event studies indicate that, among adults receiving federal disability insurance from 2006 to 2019, moves to states with higher rates of risky use produce an immediate jump in the probability of risky use, followed by an additional gradual increase for the next several years. Using a potential outcomes framework, we show how these results map to the person- and place-specific factors in the model. Model estimates imply large effects of place on both the likelihood of transitioning to addiction and the availability of prescription opioids; they also indicate that these place effects change significantly when state laws restricting pain clinics are enacted. A one standard deviation reduction in all place effects would have reduced risky use by about 40 percent over our study period. One particular source of place effects, pain clinic laws, reduced risky use by 5 percent, but could have reduced it by 30 percent if they had been enacted earlier, with much of this magnification operating through the dynamics of addiction.
Working Papers
with Mert Demirer, Diego Jiménez Hernández, and Sida Peng
Journal of Political Economy, Revise & Resubmit (2025)
We estimate a production function for cloud computing to measure how the
GDPR altered firms' use of data and computation, finding that the regulation
represents a 20% increase in the cost of data.
Paper
Slides
BibTeX
Abstract
By regulating how firms collect and use data, privacy laws may alter firm demand for information technology inputs. We study how firms respond to privacy laws in the context of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by using seven years of data from a global cloud-computing provider. Our difference-in-difference estimates indicate that, in response to the GDPR, EU firms decreased data storage by 26% and data processing by 15% relative to comparable US firms, becoming less “data-intensive.” To estimate the costs of the GDPR for firms, we propose and estimate a production function where firms combine data and computation in firm production. We find that data and computation are strong complements and that firm responses are consistent with the GDPR representing a 20% increase in the cost of data. This increase translates into only a 0.1–0.5% rise in overall production costs because data plays a relatively small role in firm production compared to computation.
The Rise of Healthcare and its Consequences for Local Labor Markets
with Amy Finkelstein and Matthew Notowidigdo
coming soon
We document the role of population aging in the dramatic growth of healthcare
employment and trace its implications for female labor force participation,
the college gender gap, and the rise of service occupations.
Selected Works in Progress
Medical Graduate Training and the Spatial Distribution of Physicians
with Raymond Han
Abstract
Geographic disparities in physician supply have significant implications for healthcare access, with rural regions facing particularly severe shortages. A key friction is that residency location anchors doctors in space: nearly one-quarter of residents take jobs within ten miles of their training hospital, and almost three-fifths remain in the same state. Yet the mechanisms underlying this inertia remain poorly understood. We use job search data and large-scale preference surveys from a major physician recruitment platform to decompose geographic anchoring among newly graduating residents into preferences, search frictions, and moving costs. Understanding these mechanisms is policy-relevant because Medicare GME payments shape the geographic distribution of residency slots. Our framework enables counterfactual evaluation of alternative funding designs for reducing physician shortages in underserved areas.
Physician Shortages and Allocative Mechanisms: Evidence from a Year-Long National Strike
with Sehyun Hong
We study a national resident physician strike in South Korea that disrupted
physician supply for fifteen months, providing a rare natural experiment on how
patients are prioritized and re-allocated in the face of sustained shortages.
Returns to Scale in Specialist Physician Markets
with Brad Setzler and Ben Vatter
As specialist concentration grows in local markets, patient outcomes appear to
improve—we study whether this reflects genuine economies of scale or
equilibrium quality distortions through market power.
Outsourcing as Management Technology: Evidence from Nursing Home M&A
I study how nursing homes combine different types of labor—nursing
assistants, licensed practical nurses, and registered nurses—to produce
care quality, and how these production trade-offs respond to staffing regulation.