The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the world to its core and provoked an overnight exodus of developers who normally worked in office setting working from home. magnitude this shift factors that have accompanied new unplanned work go beyond what software engineering community previously understood be remote work. To find out how their productivity were affected, we distributed two surveys (with a combined total 3,634 responses answered all required questions) weeks apart understand presence...

Using information local to the premerger equilibrium, we derive approximations of expected changes in prices and welfare generated by a merger. We extend pricing pressure approach recent work allow for non-Bertrand conduct, adjusting diversion ratio incorporating change anticipated accommodation. To convert pressures into quantitative estimates price changes, multiply them merger pass-through matrix, which (under conditions specify) is approximated rate at cost increases are passed through...

Covid-19 dramatically changed how organizations worked. Microsoft was one of the first to ask employees work from home (WFH). We developed an anonymous nightly diary study with 435 participants and learned about their experiences over 10 weeks WFH directive. found largest challenges were having too many meetings, feeling overworked, physical mental health. However, engineers reported gratitude for family, increased flexibility, being employed, team support. also that simple act reflecting...

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The growth in remote and hybrid work catalyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic could have significant environmental implications. We assess greenhouse gas emissions of this transition, considering factors including information communication technology, commuting, noncommute travel, office residential energy use. find that, United States, switching from working onsite to home can reduce up 58% work's carbon footprint, impacts IT usage are negligible, while use travel important. Our study also...

Using information local to the pre-merger equilibrium, we derive approximations of expected changes in prices and welfare generated by a merger. We extend pricing pressure approach recent work allow for non-Bertrand conduct, adjusting diversion ratio incorporating change anticipated accommodation. To convert pressures into quantitative estimates price changes, multiply them merger pass-through matrix, which (under conditions specify) is approximated rate at cost increases are passed through...

Policymakers subsidizing health insurance often face uncertainty about future market prices. We study the implications of one policy response: linking subsidies to prices target a given postsubsidy premium. show that these price-linked weaken competition, raising for government and/or consumers. However, price-linking also ties care cost shocks, which may be desirable. Evaluating this tradeoff empirically, using model estimated with Massachusetts exchange data, we find increases 1–6 percent,...

The recent rise of hybrid work poses novel challenges for synchronizing in-office schedules. Using anonymized building access data, we quantified coattendance patterns among ~43k employees at a large global technology company. We used two-way fixed effects regression models to investigate the association between an employee’s presence in office and that their manager teammates. Our analysis shows employee in-person attendance was 29% higher when present. Moreover, 1-SD increase share...

We are providing a preview of project that analyzes two field experiments with 1,974 software developers at Microsoft and Accenture to evaluate the productivity impact Generative AI. As part our study, random subset was given access GitHub Copilot, an AI-based coding assistant intelligently suggests 'completions' for code. Our preliminary results provide suggestive evidence these became more productive, completing 12.92% 21.83% pull requests per week 7.51% 8.69% (depending on specification)....

Medical innovations have improved survival and treatment for many diseases but simultaneously raised spending on health care.Many economists believe that technological change is the major factor driving growth of heath care sector.Whether quality has increased as much a central question both positive normative analysis this sector.This impact new quality-adjusted prices in care.We perform systematic qualityadjusted prices, with over six thousand comparisons to incumbent technologies.For each...

Medical innovations have improved treatment for many diseases but simultaneously raised spending on health care. Many economists believe that technological change is the major factor driving growth of health-care sector. Whether quality has increased as much spending—that is, whether new raise or lower quality-adjusted prices in care—is a central question both positive and normative analysis. We do systematic analysis impact prices, with over 6,000 comparisons between incumbent technologies....

Subsidies in many health insurance programs depend on prices set by competing insurers -- as rise, so do subsidies. We study the economics of these "price-linked" subsidies compared to "fixed" independently market prices. show that price-linked weaken price competition, leading higher markups and subsidy costs for government. argue make sense only if (1) there is uncertainty about costs/prices, (2) optimal increase rise. propose two reasons why may rise with prices: doing both insures...

We show that with more than two options, a discrete choice model cannot generate linear demand. In doing so, we demonstrate prediction of such models is falsifiable based on local second-order properties

Abstract We analyze the effects of taxation in two‐sided matching markets where agents have heterogeneous preferences over potential partners. Our model provides a continuous link between models with and without transfers. Taxes generate inefficiency on allocative margin, by changing who matches whom. This can be nonmonotonic, but is weakly increasing tax rate under linear if each worker has negative nonpecuniary utility working. adapt existing econometric methods for taxes to our setting,...

We make use of data from a Facebook application where hundreds thousands people played simultaneous move, zero-sum game—rock-paper-scissors—with varying information to analyze whether play in strategic settings is consistent with extant theories. report three main insights. First, we observe that most employ strategies Nash, at least some the time. Second, however, players strategically on previous their opponents, non-Nash equilibrium behavior; they are more likely do so when expected...

In March 2020, shortly after Microsoft closed its Puget-sound offices because of COVID-19, researchers across the company formed Future Remote Work Initiative to coordinate research happening on work from home (WFH). The initiative was intended both help research— making surveys complementary, not redundant and connecting interested in same questions—and share findings with people as well outside company.

We analyze the effects of taxation in two-sided matching markets, i.e. markets which all agents have heterogeneous preferences over potential partners. In taxes can generate inefficiency on allocative margin by changing who is matched to whom, even if number workers at each firm unaffected. While need not be monotonic level tax when transfers flow both directions, we show that it weakly increasing rate for refuse match without a positive wage. introduce renormalization allows an equivalence...

We analyze the financial value of insurance when individuals have access to credit markets.Loans allow consumers smooth shocks across time, decreasing smoothing (across states world) provided by insurance.We derive a simple formula for incremental and show how it depends on individual age, health, income features available loans.Our central contribution is formulas aggregate welfare that can be taken data from typical studies health provide both exact distribution medical expenditures an...