Research Papers

Tell Your Friends! Word of Mouth and Percolation in Social Networks (Job Market Paper)
This paper studies the optimal strategies of a monopolist selling a good to consumers who engage in word of mouth communication (WOM) with each other. In the model consumers may spread news about the monopolist's good to uninformed consumers through a social network. The monopolist may use the price it charges to influence both the proportion of the population that is willing to purchase the good and the pattern of communication that takes place within the social network. I find a number of results: (i) demand is more elastic in the presence of WOM and this induces a downward bias in naive estimates of consumers' valuation for the good; (ii) the monopolist reduces the price to induce additional WOM, however for goods whose valuation is greater for well connected individuals the price may, in fact, be greater; (iii) the optimal pattern of diffusion involves introductory prices which fluctuate up and down; and (iv) high priced products will optimally target advertising towards individuals with many friends whereas low priced products will target.individuals with fewer friends.

Government policies which support intermittent technologies for electricity generation (Paper)
This paper analyzes the effects of policies which support electricity generation from intermittent technologies (wind, solar) on the long-run incentives for investment and generation from dispatchable electricity generation technologies (gas, coal, nuclear, oil). The nature of electricity markets, instantaneous matching of supply and demand, means that intermittent technologies are not perfect substitutes for any one dispatchable technology. The variability of load usually determines the long run mix of generating technologies in a competitive electricity market. When there is a significant amount of intermittent production the mix of other generating technologies is determined by the variability of net load (load net of intermittent output). Net load may be more variable than load itself if the intermittent output is not too positively correlated with load. This increase in variability results in a substitution away from baseload generating technologies towards peaking and intermediate technologies. If peaking and intermediate technologies are more carbon intensive than non-renewable "baseload" technologies, this substitution can more than offset the emission benefits derived from the output of the renewable technology.

Signaling in Social Networks (Paper)
Jackson and Rogers (2007) show how a process of network growth, that incorporates random and network based meetings, can explain many of the stylised facts associated with social networks. In this paper I show how a relatively simple intuition, that people trust each other more when they share a friend in common, can lead to a process of network formation similar to that of Jackson and Rogers as a sequential equilibrium of a dynamic game. By providing a micro foundation for network formation it allows one to predict when different types of networks are likely to form based on the parameters within the model and the welfare implications of each. Furthermore it provides a framework within which the effects of broad based policies designed to affect social networks can be assessed.