Research

Works in Progress

Limitations of Scale of Non-Market Coordination

Working Abstract: Efficient allocation among autonomous production units requires each unit to contribute effort or resources it could privately withhold. Without prices, discipline must come from repeated interaction: units observe noisy public signals of aggregate performance and punish suspected shirking. I study how the informational requirements of such arrangements scale with the number of units. In a repeated partnership with imperfect public monitoring, I characterize the minimum discount factor sustaining efficient allocation as a function of signal precision and the number of units N, and show that the precision required grows without bound in N — so that for any fixed monitoring technology, efficient non-price coordination fails beyond a critical scale. I then characterize monitoring structures that relax the bound: hierarchical aggregation of signals, partitioned punishment within subgroups, and third-party verification.

The Leviathan and the Earth’s Crust: Mapping the Rare Earths Metal Supply Chain

Working Abstract: Rare earth elements (REEs) are critical inputs in the production of electric vehicles, wind turbines, defense systems, and other advanced technologies, yet the propagation of REE price shocks through downstream industries remains poorly understood. This paper uses the Leontief price model combined with commodity price data to trace how volatility in REE prices transmits through the supply chain to producer and consumer goods in a multi-country setting. I decompose the REE supply chain into mining, processing, and end-use stages, and examine the forward linkages from raw material prices to downstream cost structures using international input-output tables. The analysis highlights the distinction between REE price formation in commodity markets, which is characterized by opacity and thin trading, and the underlying cost-price structure implied by the production network. The paper contributes to the empirical literature on price propagation in production networks and to ongoing policy debates over critical mineral supply chain resilience.

Working Papers

Choice under Value Pluralism (w/Aaron Benanav)

Abstract: Classical rational choice theory assumes preferences are complete, presupposing that an agent's evaluative considerations have a common scale. We drop completeness and develop a normative theory of rational choice for agents whose values are plural and incommensurable. The resulting individual choice problem is characterized as the formal dual of Arrovian social choice. The agent's value structure determines a majority tournament whose cycle topology partitions choice behavior into three classes: classical optimization, recovered when values converge; the hard choice, in which value conflicts are structurally isolated; and the tragic choice, in which conflicts are entangled and all classical consistency properties fail. Violations of classical consistency conditions are rational responses to value conflict rather than departures from rationality.

Pandemic, Inflation, and Automotive Theft, 2020-2023 (Email for draft)

Abstract: Motor vehicle theft rose 42 percent in the United States from 2019 to 2023, even as overall property crime declined. Did rising used vehicle prices contribute to this surge? I exploit variation in vehicle ownership across cities, interacting predetermined shares with national price changes for each vehicle type. Cities more exposed to vehicles that appreciated strongly saw larger theft increases. Two cities differing by one standard deviation in SUV ownership showed 24 percent differential theft growth. Effects concentrate in Western states and near major ports, consistent with theft-for-export networks documented in federal prosecutions. In interior cities, price exposure does not predict theft. Pre-trends tests support the parallel trends assumption. The geographic concentration suggests that price incentives generate large theft responses only where stolen vehicles can be converted to cash through export channels.