Economics professor at @UVA. I study pricing capabilities (e.g., algorithms, contracts, etc.), competition, and dynamic consumer behavior.
Joined November 2009
- Tweets375
- Following465
- Followers2K
- Likes723
Alex MacKay retweeted
If you're on the job market in IO or know someone who is, add your name to the list (or pass on the link).
Ppl on the 'demand' side of the market tell me they look at this list both during the market (e.g. for hiring) and after (e.g. for inviting to seminars, etc.).
The running list of IO job market candidates for 2026-2027 is live!
Fill this out to add your info if you are an econ job market candidate in industrial organization this year: forms.gle/kSRAxu8NAFsJ1AXB6
Running list here: shoshanavasserman.com/io-jmc…
Alex MacKay retweeted
Congratulations to our colleague @emma_k_h and her coauthor, @NataliaHEmanuel, on the publication of their new book, In Person!
Today, In Person is available wherever books are sold! I couldn't have done it without @NataliaHEmanuel.
In grad school, we were randomly assigned to the same basement office. That accident led us to become friends and coauthors —- now of a book.
Alex MacKay retweeted
🚨 2026 Nobel Prize in Economics goes to Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford 🚨
"for microfoundations of macroeconomic stabilisation"
Such a good macro prize. So happy to see Robert Hall, not mentioned as much as Woodford in this discourse
Alex MacKay retweeted
BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford “for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation.”
#NobelPrize
Charlie is a @UVA treasure. He is the nicest colleague and amazingly productive: 6 papers and a book out this year!
It is a well-deserved recognition. Congratulations!
Congratulations to our colleague Charlie Holt on being elected Fellow of the Econometric Society!
econometricsociety.org/uploa…
Alex MacKay retweeted
The running list of IO job market candidates for 2026-2027 is live!
Fill this out to add your info if you are an econ job market candidate in industrial organization this year: forms.gle/kSRAxu8NAFsJ1AXB6
Running list here: shoshanavasserman.com/io-jmc…
Alex MacKay retweeted
Candidates with interests in international trade and/or are spatial economics are especially encouraged to apply (and not just by me).
🚨 We are hiring at @UVAEconomics!
We have TWO Assistant Professor openings this year:
• Microeconomic Theory and/or Industrial Organization
• Applied Microeconomics
Applications are due November 10.
Apply here:
• apply.interfolio.com/190672
• apply.interfolio.com/192420
Alex MacKay retweeted
🚨 We are hiring at @UVAEconomics!
We have TWO Assistant Professor openings this year:
• Microeconomic Theory and/or Industrial Organization
• Applied Microeconomics
Applications are due November 10.
Apply here:
• apply.interfolio.com/190672
• apply.interfolio.com/192420
Alex MacKay retweeted
Newly accepted paper by our colleague Alex MacKay (@_amackay) in the RAND Journal of Economics.
Consumer inertia can lead standard merger models to overstate the extent to which mergers raise prices.
Read the paper: alexandermackay.org/files/Me…
Does deregulation reduce prices? In the electricity sector, studies had shown that deregulated markets led to more efficient production than the traditional model. But there was not much evidence about the impact to consumers.
In our study (now accepted at JPE Micro), we looked more comprehensively at wholesale markets. We found that generation did become cheaper, but utilities ended up paying more for energy. As a result, consumers didn’t see lower prices.
That gap widened over time. Early rate caps and long-term contracts held wholesale prices down during the transition, but once they expired, wholesale prices increased.
In a perfectly competitive market, falling costs would be expected to push prices down. Instead, we observe the opposite.
Because utilities pass their energy costs through to bundled rates almost directly, retail prices went up!
The takeaway: deregulation made electricity cheaper to produce, but that did not make it cheaper to buy. Lower costs need not translate into lower prices when markets are not perfectly competitive.
Full paper: tinyurl.com/k35hne5h
This is joint with Ignacia Mercadal. #EconTwitter
Alex MacKay retweeted
Published an op ed in @nytimes: remote work hurts mental health.
Let me explain why
🧵⤵️
Alex MacKay retweeted
I believe we now have evidence of FIFA's World Cup ticketing shell game: FIFA is colluding with third-party resale platforms for its own supply management.
Look at this SeatGeek map (secondary market!) for Saudi Arabia vs Cape Verde. The circled areas are not random single resale tickets, but large, contiguous blocks of seats: entire rows and swaths in sections 101/102, 112/113, 119/120, 134–137, 139, ...
The blue circles appeared weeks ago, then the purple blocks suddenly showed up a day or two ago, and the red blocks seem to have appeared recently too.
That's not what ordinary fan or even commercial scalper resale looks like who resell pairs, fours, and scattered seats. Instead, this looks like inventory being dumped in bulk onto secondary markets, at prices below FIFA's official site.
Why doesn't FIFA just lower prices on its own site Probably because official price cuts could trigger refund demands, chargebacks, or consumer-protection headaches from fans who already bought at much higher prices.
Instead FIFA keeps official prices high, avoids openly admitting the market-clearing price is lower, and moves unsold inventory through third-party resale platforms instead.
Alex MacKay retweeted
Some people are optimistic about stock returns, some are pessimistic. And, when presented with a similar menu of investment options, investors will make very different choices.
In this paper, we try to make progress toward understanding why, using the actual decisions that investors make in their 401(k) retirement plans. We extend demand estimation techniques to portfolio choice using a new identification strategy. This allows us to recover varying expectations across investors for different assets.
Alex MacKay retweeted
New paper by Kalouptsidi, Kitamura, Lima, and Souza-Rodrigues:
restud.com/counterfactual-an…
#REStud
#EconX
#EconTwitter
Some people are optimistic about stock returns, some are pessimistic. And, when presented with a similar menu of investment options, investors will make very different choices.
In this paper, we try to make progress toward understanding why, using the actual decisions that investors make in their 401(k) retirement plans. We extend demand estimation techniques to portfolio choice using a new identification strategy. This allows us to recover varying expectations across investors for different assets.
Our estimates indicate that investors vary widely in their expectations, and that expectations are predictable by the industry investors work in, local economic conditions, and the recent performance of investors’ employers.
Heterogeneity in beliefs (or disagreement) is costly for investors, reducing risk adjusted returns by about 0.7 percent per year. However, the limited menu of choices offered by retirement plans may help insulate investors from larger mistakes they might if individual stocks and bonds were featured on the plan menu.
The paper is now accepted at the RFS. A shout out to my great co-authors, Mark Egan and Hanbin Yang!
academic.oup.com/rfs/advance…
