Digital Commons Network^™

Screening And Segmenting: A Consumer Surplus Perspective, Dirk Bergemann, Tibor Heumann, Michael C. Wang

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We analyze consumer surplus when a monopolist can adjust both prices and prod-uct qualities across segments, engaging in second- and third-degree price discrimination simultaneously. We characterize the consumer-optimal segmentation and show that it has a striking structure: consumers with the same value receive the same quality in every segment, though prices differ. Under mild conditions, any segmentation harms consumers if and only if demand is sufficiently more elastic than supply. Hence, po-tential benefits for consumers depend critically on demand and supply elasticities. These findings have implications for regulatory policy regarding price discrimination and market segmentation.

Identifying Common Trend Determinants In Panel Data, Yoonseok Lee, Peter C.B. Phillips, Suyong Song, Donggyu Sul

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper develops a novel method for identifying observable determinants of latent common trends in nonstationary panel data, which are typically removed or controlled in two-way fixed effects regressions. By examining cross sectional dispersion processes, we assess whether panel series exhibit distributional convergence toward specific observed time series, revealing them as long run determinants of the underlying latent trend. The approach also offers a new perspective on cointegration between time series and panel data, focusing on the relative variation of the panel data with respect to the cointegration error. Applying this method to U.S. state-level crime rates demonstrates that the …

The Skill Premium In Times Of Rapid Technological Change, Tarek Hassan, Aakash Kalyani, Pascual Restrepo

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

No abstract provided.

Trade, Labor Market Concentration, And Wages, Mayara Felix

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

I estimate the effect of trade on local labor market concentration and its implications for wages using employer-employee linked data and tariff shocks from Brazil’s trade liberalization. Trade increased concentration by 7%, an effect driven by firm exit and worker flows to surviving import-competing firms. Increased concentration reduced wage take-home shares—estimated at 50 cents on the dollar pre-shock—enough to offset small wage gains from reallocation, but did not meaningfully reduce wages on net. Most of the wage declines attributed to Brazil’s trade liberalization resulted instead from reductions in the marginal revenue product of labor. Incorporating informality reveals substantial regional heterogeneity.

Subjective Earnings And Employment Dynamics, Manual Arellano, Orazio Attanasio, Margherita Borella, Mariacristina De Nardi, Gonzalo Paz-Pardo

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We develop a new approach to estimating earnings, job, and employment dynamics using subjective expectations data from the NY Fed Survey of Consumer Expectations. These data provide beliefs about future earnings offers and acceptance probabilities, offering direct information on counterfactual outcomes and enabling identification under weaker assumptions. Our framework avoids biases from selection and unobserved heterogeneity that affect models using realized outcomes. First-step fixed-effects regressions identify risk, persistence, and transition effects; second-step GMM recovers the covariance structure of unobserved heterogeneities such as ability, mobility, and match quality. We find lower risk and persistence of the individual productivity component than in …

Archives And Children's Knowledge, Elliott Kuecker, Ashley Rockenbach

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article argues for the importance of collecting works created by children—not just about and not just for—in formal archival collections. Framed through the ideas of legitimate knowledge and epistemic injustice, this piece combines notions important to children’s rights activists and childhood studies scholars with the role archives can play in preserving children’s knowledge through child-created materials. The authors describe how researchers struggle to find work created by children within archives, impacting the ability to create child-centered research that centers children’s views of the world as prominently as adult views of the world. Some collections that do include child-created materials …

Accepting And Implementing Virtual Reality In Archives: Archivists' Perspective, Farzaneh Talebhaghighi

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a transformative technology across various domains, including education, entertainment, and cultural heritage institutions. While libraries and museums have actively explored VR’s potential to enhance user engagement and accessibility, its adoption in archival settings remains limited. This study examines the perspectives of academic archivists regarding the acceptance and implementation of VR in archives, identifying key factors that influence their willingness to adopt or reject the technology. Through qualitative interviews with five archivists from the University of Arizona and Arizona State University, this research explores the perceived benefits, challenges, and institutional barriers associated with VR integration. …

An Archival Responsibility: A Scoping Review Of Literature Regarding The Documentary Burdens Of Refugees, Ana Roeschley, Kinza Alizai, Crystal Tharayil, Amy Lanier, Merrion D. Frederick, Homero R. Cuevas

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Documented individuals who do not live in conflict zones can usually access and use their records to migrate, begin new careers, enroll their children in educational institutions, and gain access to healthcare through mostly routine record-related procedures. However, these standard processes become impossible obstacles for refugees when they lose access to their personal records as part of their forced displacement. Though ever-present for refugees, these documentary burdens are compounded in times of societal crises and political upheaval—times when documentation is most critical. If archivists and archival scholars are to address these issues, it is important to understand the scope of …

Leveraging Consumer-Level Ai For Descriptive Metadata Creation In Archival Collections, Hope Dunbar, Ken Axford

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This study evaluates the effectiveness of consumer-level AI tools—ChatGPT Pro and Microsoft Copilot—for generating descriptive metadata in digital archival collections. Using a pilot project at the University at Buffalo's University Archives, researchers tested these tools on transcripts from the WBFO radio archives to create program descriptions of varying lengths. Findings demonstrate that both tools significantly reduced processing time for audio collections, with each exhibiting distinct advantages: ChatGPT Pro offered more adaptable outputs while Microsoft Copilot excelled in structured environments with superior privacy protections. The study explores prompt engineering strategies, examines limitations including AI hallucinations when identifying subject headings, and addresses …

Review Of Ethics In Linked Data, Rebecca Fried

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

"Ethics in Linked Data," edited by B. M. Watson, Alexandra Provo, and Kathleen Burlingame, offers a critical examination of the ethical challenges and opportunities in linked data practices within GLAM institutions. In its sixteen chapters the anthology blends theoretical frameworks with practical case studies to address the social and cultural implications of linked data systems. Divided into three parts, the book explores the theoretical and contextual foundations of ethical considerations, addresses institutional and structural challenges shaped by colonial and hegemonic forces, and focuses on community-centered projects that amplify marginalized voices. By highlighting issues such as sustainability, inclusivity, and privacy, the …

Review Of Land In Libraries: Toward A Materialist Conception Of Education, Anna Z. Szapiro

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Extractive practices of colonial land theft and environmental exploitation have produced intolerable global conditions leading to climate collapse. As the information field grapples with its culpability in colonial violence and climate change, Lydia Zvyagintseva and Mary Greenshields’s incisive Land in Libraries: Toward a Materialist Conception of Education draws contributions from practitioners in the United States and Canada to chart a way forward. Through historical analysis, case studies, critical theory, and autoethnography, authors in this volume take up land – and our relation to it – as the epistemological catalyst for systemic change. At once austere critique and lyrical contemplation, Land …

Review Of Scattered And Fugitive Things: How Black Collectors Created Archives And Remade History, Kai H. Uchida

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In Scattered and Fugitive Things: How Black Collectors Created Archives and Remade History, historian and archivist Laura E. Helton tells the story of six individuals – Arturo Schomburg, Alexander Gumby, Virginia Lee, Dorothy Porter, Vivian Harsh, and Lawrence Reddick – whose practices of radical collecting revalued and recast the importance of Black history. Helton combines innovative methodological readings of previously undervalued archival sources with a keen understanding of archival practice to illuminate Black archives as a site of radical collecting, intellectual inquiry, and community empowerment. Compellingly written with insights about the theory of their curation and the story of …

Pricing And Production Without The Invisible Hand, Joel P. Flynn, George Nikolakoudis, Karthik A. Sastry

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Modern theories of the business cycle do not allow for the simultaneous rational choice of both prices and quantities, instead assuming that an “invisible hand” determines one of these variables to clear markets. In this paper, we develop a macroeconomic framework in which both prices and quantities are chosen directly by firms, and exchange is both voluntary and efficient. Because of uncertainty about demand and productivity, individual product markets can be in excess supply or rationed. The absence of market-clearing changes pricing and production in qualitatively important ways: markups are no longer determined solely by the elasticity of demand, and …

Digital Ecosystems And Data Regulation, Andrew Rhodes, Jidong Zhou, Junjie Zhou

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper develops a framework in which a multiproduct ecosystem competes with multiple single-product firms in both price and innovation. The ecosystem can use data from one product to improve the quality of its other products. We use the framework to study three regulatory policies aimed at leveling the playing field. Restricting the ecosystem’s cross-product data usage, or forcing it to share data with single-product firms, benefits those firms and induces them to innovate more. However, these policies also dampen the ecosystem’s incentive to collect data and innovate, potentially raising prices. Consumers are better off only when single-product firms are …

Initial-Condition-Robust Inference In Autoregressive Models, Donald W. K. Andrews, Ming Li, Yapeng Zheng

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper considers confidence intervals (CIs) for the autoregressive (AR) parameter in an AR model with an AR parameter that may be close or equal to one. Existing CIs rely on the assumption of a stationary or fixed initial condition to obtain correct asymptotic coverage and good finite sample coverage. When this assumption fails, their coverage can be quite poor. In this paper, we introduce a new CI for the AR parameter whose coverage probability is completely robust to the initial condition, both asymptotically and in finite samples. This CI pays only a small price in terms of its length …

Willingness To Travel With Endogenous Distance: Evidence From The Changing Retail Landscape, Yue Cao, Judith Chevalier, Jessie Handbury, Hayden Parsley, Kevin Williams

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Economists often use variation in consumers’ distance from services as a source of demand variation. This approach typically treats consumer-supplier distance as exogenous, despite suppliers strategically choosing locations. We develop a novel class of instruments to address this endogeneity. These instruments exploit the spatial distribution of consumer demographics and can be constructed from standard cross-sectional data, making them useful in a variety of spatial applications. Our preferred instruments use the income composition of concentric discs centered on the Central Business District. Applying these instruments to smartphone geolocation data for millions of devices across 18 metropolitan areas, we estimate consumer preferences …

Affective Interdependence And Welfare, Aviad Heifetz, Enrico Minelli, Heracles M. Polemarchakis

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Purely affective interaction allows the welfare of an individual to depend only the individual’s own action and on the profile of welfare levels of others. Under an assumption on the structure of mutual affection that we interpret as non-reinforcing mutual affection, we show that equilibria of affective interaction are Pareto optimal. Moreover, if purely affective interaction induces a standard game, then an equilibrium profile of actions is a Nash equilibrium of the induced game, and this Nash equilibrium and Pareto optimal profile of strategies is locally dominant.

Human Capital And Development, Philippe Aghion, Ingvild Almås, Costas Meghir

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Human capital is central to efforts to promote growth, convergence, and the elimination of poverty. Drawing on seminal macroeconomic frameworks by Nelson-Phelps, Lucas, and subsequent developments, alongside macro and microeconomic evidence, the chapter examines the role of human capital in driving innovation and growth, emphasizing how different types of human capital matter at different stages of development, and discussing obstacles to accumulation and evidence from policy interventions.

Wedges: A Microeconomic Perspective On Misallocation, Lauren Falcao Bergquist, Daniel Lashkari, Eric Verhoogen

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This chapter, prepared for the Handbook of Development Economics (Vol. 6), reviews recent microeconomic evidence on the causes of resource misallocation in developing countries. It distinguishes between “technological” and “distortionary” wedges, develops a unified theoretical framework linking market power, taxes, financial frictions, and firm dynamics, and summarizes empirical findings from the “direct approach” to misallocation. The authors emphasize how wedges vary by firm size and discuss policy implications for improving allocative efficiency.

Information Design And Mechanism Design: An Integrated Framework, Dirk Bergemann, Tibor Heumann, Stephen Morris

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We develop an integrated framework for information design and mechanism design in screening environments with quasilinear utility. Using the tools of majorization theory and quantile functions, we show that both information design and mechanism design problems reduce to maximizing linear functionals subject to majorization constraints. For mechanism design, the designer chooses allocations weakly majorized by the exogenous inventory. For information design, the designer chooses information structures that are majorized by the prior distribution. When the designer can choose both the mechanism and the information structure simultaneously, then the joint optimization problem becomes bilinear with two majorization constraints. We show that …

Clean Rides, Healthy Lives: The Impact Of Electric Vehicle Adoption On Air Quality And Infant Health, Cavit Baran, Janet Currie, Bahadır Dursun, Erdal Teki

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper provides the first nationwide U.S. evidence on the effects of electric vehicle (EV) adoption on air quality and child health. Using county-level data from 2010–2021, we link EV registrations to air pollution, birth outcomes, and emergency department visits. Endogenous adoption is addressed using two-way fixed effects and an instrumental variables strategy exploiting the rollout of federally designated Alternative Fuel Corridors. Greater EV adoption significantly lowers nitrogen dioxide and improves infant and child health, reducing very low birth weight, prematurity, and asthma-related emergency visits. The largest health gains occur in high-pollution areas and exceed $1.2–$4.0 billion annually.

Extreme Points And Majorization, Andreas Kleiner, Benny Moldovanu, Philipp Strack

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Many seemingly different economic problems share a common mathematical structure: they involve the maximization of a functional over sets of monotonic functions that are either majorized by, or majorize, a given function. This paper presents new, simpler proofs for the main characterization results of the extreme points of sets defined by monotonicity and majorization constraints obtained by Kleiner, Moldovanu, and Strack (2021). It demonstrates how these characterizations can be applied to a broad range of economic applications, including auction and information design, contest design, optimal delegation, optimal stopping, and decision problems under risk. The paper concludes with an overview of …

Methylenetetrahydrofolate Reductase (Mthfr) Polymorphisms And Neural Tube Defects In African Populations: A Global Meta-Analysis And Population Genetic Characterization In Uganda, Nana Ekua Entsiwa Adenu-Mensah

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Background: Neural tube defects (NTDs) affect 1.9 per 1,000 births globally, with the highest burden occurring in African populations that remain underrepresented in genetic epidemiology. The methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) C677T and A1298C polymorphisms reduce enzyme activity and have been associated with increased NTD risk in several populations, though their relevance across African regions remains unclear.

Methods: We conducted: (1) an updated systematic review and meta-analysis of MTHFR C677T and A1298C polymorphisms and NTD risk (66 studies, ~22,000 participants); (2) population-level genotype characterization of 978 Ugandan children using whole-genome sequencing; and (3), a comparative analysis of MTHFR C677T allele frequencies across …

Opportunities To Address Alcohol Use With Community-Based Hiv Testing: A Parallel Mixed Methods Study, William Thomas Allen

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Background: Unhealthy alcohol use (UAU), defined as alcohol consumption at a level that has caused or has the potential to cause adverse physical, psychological, or social consequences, and particularly heavy episodic drinking (HED), is a risk factor for HIV infection that is often overlooked in HIV prevention settings. UAU impacts HIV infection risk through sexual decision-making mechanisms including condom use and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) adherence. Community-based HIV service organizations (HSO) may provide an opportunity to reach individuals with overlapping HIV risk, UAU, and low access to traditional healthcare systems. The feasibility and utility of UAU screening and intervention in the …

Lapses In Care Among Patients With Proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy: A Mixed-Methods Study, Serina Sera Applebaum

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) affects approximately 7% of individuals with diabetes and requires consistent follow-up to prevent irreversible vision loss. Despite this, lapses in PDR care are common, but poorly characterized. We conducted a two-phase mixed-methods evaluation, including a quantitative retrospective national cohort study of individuals with PDR, followed by a qualitative study investigating participant perspectives on their own lapses in PDR care. In the quantitative component, we used data from 13 academic health systems in the Sight Outcomes Research Collaborative (SOURCE) Repository between 2008 and 2023 to identify adults aged ≥18 with PDR and ≥6 months of ophthalmic follow-up. …

Social Drivers Of Healthcare Access In Pediatric Autoimmune Disease: A U.S. Analysis (2022–2023), Kevin Okifo

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Background: Prior studies in adults have demonstrated that social drivers of health contribute to disparities in disease burden, management, and healthcare access among individuals with autoimmune disease (AD). There is emerging pediatric evidence suggesting similar patterns, but national-level data describing how social and structural factors shape healthcare access for children with AD remain limited. The aim of this study is to identify the sociodemographic and structural factors associated with healthcare access among children and adolescents with AD in the United States. Understanding these factors can support meaningful advances that will optimize patient-centered care and wraparound services for pediatric AD.Study Design: …

Two-Level Anterior Cervical Spine Intervention: A Comparative Analysis Of Existing Techniques, Philip Prakash Ratnasamy

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Background/Scientific Premise: There is growing utilization of surgical intervention for two-level degenerative cervical spine pathology. Multiple treatment options exist. The gold standard remains two-level anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF), in which the degenerative or herniated cervical discs are removed through an anterior approach to decompress neural elements, followed by fusion of the two involved interspaces to restore stability and alignment. More recently, cervical disc arthroplasty (CDA) has emerged as a viable treatment option for two-level cervical spine pathology, in which the surgeon removes the diseased intervertebral discs and replaces them with artificial discs to reconstruct the segments following decompress …

Level Of Evidence And Cost Considerations In United States Clinical Practice Guidelines, 2019-2023, Omar Qureshi

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

BackgroundClinicians rely on clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) to fulfill a dual mandate: practicing evidence-based medicine and ensuring cost-conscious stewardship of resources. However, it remains unclear whether modern CPGs provide the guidance necessary to meet these goals. Specifically, the extent to which recommendation strengths align with evidence quality and the prevalence of cost-related guidance within U.S. medical society CPGs remains unknown.

Research Aimsa) To examine the distribution of SOR and LOE ratings for recommendations offered by United States medical societies through CPGs and evaluate concordance between SOR and LOE ratings for CPG recommendations. Additionally, assess whether there are recommendation-level, guideline-level, or …

Clinical And Pathologic Factors Associated With Poor Outcomes In Cutaneous Sarcomas, Jennifer Rodriguez

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Background:Cutaneous sarcomas exhibit a broad spectrum of clinical behavior, ranging from indolent tumors to lesions with significant metastatic potential. In atypical fibroxanthoma, pleomorphic dermal sarcoma, and cutaneous leiomyosarcoma predictors of recurrence and metastasis are not always apparent at initial diagnosis. Improved understanding of clinicopathologic features associated with adverse outcomes is needed to guide risk stratification and management.

Objectives:To identify clinical and pathologic factors associated with poor outcomes in AFX, PDS, and cutaneous leiomyosarcoma and to evaluate the relationship between initial biopsy, definitive excision findings, and clinical outcomes.

Methods:This thesis comprises three retrospective cohort studies conducted at a single academic institution. …

Automated Cerebral Autoregulation Monitoring With Machine Learning, Matteo Rosati

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Background - Current methods of identifying patients in the neurological intensive care unit (NeuroICU) with disrupted cerebral autoregulation rely on statistical methods that require significant time to produce predictions. There is a need for faster algorithms that can minimize the secondary damage caused by disrupted autoregulation in these patients.

Research Aims - We aim to develop a machine learning (ML) model that determines whether a patient is outside optimal autoregulatory limits using continuously recordable and minimally invasive physiologic data gathered in the NeuroICU.

Hypothesis - We hypothesize we can use ML techinques to ingest physiologic data in short time windows …