Asset pricing with social interactions, adaptive learning, and differences in opinion. This project seeks to understand how social interactions and adaptive learning of investors affect asset prices in highly competitive and adaptive financial markets. It will develop an evolutionary asset pricing theory, novel empirical hypotheses and tests of financial market characteristics and provide implications for policy and market regulation.
The effect of competition and doctor heterogeneity on prices charged by doctors. Prices charged by doctors can have important effects on health care costs, access to health care and health status. This research will examine the determinants of prices charged by doctors. The results will be important in understanding the pricing practices of doctors and their impact on health care costs.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100104
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$372,000.00
Summary
Mechanism Design with Aftermarket Dynamics. This project aims to design optimal selling policies, allowing for aftermarket dynamics such as resale and inter-buyer competitions. The existence of an aftermarket greatly affects the optimal design of license auctions, procurement, franchising and the like. For instance, when market licenses are auctioned off, incumbent firms may compete fiercely for licenses they do not need simply to keep entrants out. Existing sales designs that overlook such bidd ....Mechanism Design with Aftermarket Dynamics. This project aims to design optimal selling policies, allowing for aftermarket dynamics such as resale and inter-buyer competitions. The existence of an aftermarket greatly affects the optimal design of license auctions, procurement, franchising and the like. For instance, when market licenses are auctioned off, incumbent firms may compete fiercely for licenses they do not need simply to keep entrants out. Existing sales designs that overlook such bidding incentives often underperform in practice. The project aims to examine informational policies that influence buyers’ activities to best suit the seller's objectives. It expects to help regulatory bodies to design more efficient license auctions, provide franchisors with more profitable strategies, and save taxpayers' money when procuring services.Read moreRead less
Tertiary admissions: towards a healthier university system. The project aims to identify the demand for university places, quantify the gains from the Australian semi-centralised admissions system and propose measures to increase these gains. The effectiveness of any tertiary education system depends critically on the quality of the match between students and courses, with mismatches resulting in millions of dollars of wasted public resources and life dissatisfaction of graduates in occupations ....Tertiary admissions: towards a healthier university system. The project aims to identify the demand for university places, quantify the gains from the Australian semi-centralised admissions system and propose measures to increase these gains. The effectiveness of any tertiary education system depends critically on the quality of the match between students and courses, with mismatches resulting in millions of dollars of wasted public resources and life dissatisfaction of graduates in occupations misaligned with their interests. Using an Australian tertiary admissions dataset containing both student preferences and rankings of students by courses, the project aims to empirically assess the trade-off between the efficiency of a match, an equitable welfare distribution and equal access to higher education. It then plans to propose the best system to balance these objectives.Read moreRead less
A robust approach to designing mechanisms for budget constrained agents. This project aims to study the design of robust implementable allocation mechanisms for agents who face financial constraints. Financial constraints are important for housing markets, big business auctions and government procurement. Yet their effect on the performance of allocation policies is not well understood. The project intends to develop a general and tractable framework of allocation mechanisms that are implementab ....A robust approach to designing mechanisms for budget constrained agents. This project aims to study the design of robust implementable allocation mechanisms for agents who face financial constraints. Financial constraints are important for housing markets, big business auctions and government procurement. Yet their effect on the performance of allocation policies is not well understood. The project intends to develop a general and tractable framework of allocation mechanisms that are implementable without deficits. The project will adapt this framework to the study of revenue-maximising multi-object auctions with complementarities, and to house allocation problems and related situations where efficiency and priority assignments are important considerations. The project expects to provide policy insights and implications relevant to the Australian housing market.Read moreRead less
A cloud computing environment for managing foreign exchange risk. This project involves using parallel computing and machine learning to improve the real-time handling of a bank's foreign exchange risk. It will lead to improved techniques to manage exchange rate variations, enabling banks to better assess their risk and will ultimately lead to improved services for Australian companies.
The economic value of smart integration of electric vehicles into the Australian electricity industry. The project will facilitate the potentially rapid and widespread deployment of Electric Vehicles (EV) in Australia with considerable social, economic and environmental benefits. The economics of our current road transportation sector are adversely impacted by rising and volatile oil prices. The near total reliance of the sector on an inherently limited and increasingly imported resource also ha ....The economic value of smart integration of electric vehicles into the Australian electricity industry. The project will facilitate the potentially rapid and widespread deployment of Electric Vehicles (EV) in Australia with considerable social, economic and environmental benefits. The economics of our current road transportation sector are adversely impacted by rising and volatile oil prices. The near total reliance of the sector on an inherently limited and increasingly imported resource also has energy security implications. Road transport is also responsible for a significant proportion of Australian greenhouse emissions. EVs represent an extraordinary opportunity to address these challenges. However, widespread uptake will hinge on our ability to effectively integrate EV charging into the Australian electricity industry.Read moreRead less
Redesigning Landcare policy to better coordinate across landholders. This project aims to study how landscape-sensitive economic incentives and social norms can be leveraged to enhance the short- and long-term effectiveness of conservation programs. It will yield new knowledge for innovative designs in conservation contracting that is urgently needed to address worsening environmental threats in Australia and worldwide. In collaboration with Nobel laureate Vernon Smith’s team, new methods and pr ....Redesigning Landcare policy to better coordinate across landholders. This project aims to study how landscape-sensitive economic incentives and social norms can be leveraged to enhance the short- and long-term effectiveness of conservation programs. It will yield new knowledge for innovative designs in conservation contracting that is urgently needed to address worsening environmental threats in Australia and worldwide. In collaboration with Nobel laureate Vernon Smith’s team, new methods and protocols will improve our ability to generate better data and better understand how social and incentive mechanisms can constructively interact to facilitate collaborative environmental action. Results will help make the achievement of environmental targets and the use of public funds more cost-effective. Read moreRead less
Designing for uncertainty in conservation auctions. Economic theory and case study evidence show that tenders or auctions are more efficient than grant mechanisms for encouraging landholders to produce environmental outcomes on private land. These studies have ignored the effects of uncertainty of both bidders and administrators about factors such as landholder participation and the level of environmental benefits that will be delivered. This project will test whether distributing environmental ....Designing for uncertainty in conservation auctions. Economic theory and case study evidence show that tenders or auctions are more efficient than grant mechanisms for encouraging landholders to produce environmental outcomes on private land. These studies have ignored the effects of uncertainty of both bidders and administrators about factors such as landholder participation and the level of environmental benefits that will be delivered. This project will test whether distributing environmental funds via tenders is still efficient when uncertainty about various important factors is considered. Results from this research are expected to inform the cost effective design of systems to pay landholders for the provision of environmental benefits even when there is high uncertainty.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100964
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$371,000.00
Summary
Understanding and designing persuasion mechanisms. The objective of this project is to understand and design persuasion mechanisms. Persuasion is about conveying information, influencing beliefs and manipulating actions. Educational campaigns and media censorship regulations are examples of persuasion mechanisms. Existing techniques from the economics of persuasion only permit analysis of specific and limited settings. This project aims to apply the classical mechanism design approach in a novel ....Understanding and designing persuasion mechanisms. The objective of this project is to understand and design persuasion mechanisms. Persuasion is about conveying information, influencing beliefs and manipulating actions. Educational campaigns and media censorship regulations are examples of persuasion mechanisms. Existing techniques from the economics of persuasion only permit analysis of specific and limited settings. This project aims to apply the classical mechanism design approach in a novel way to model persuasion in rich and realistic settings, thus providing insights into real-world situations. It is anticipated that this will allow us to answer questions such as ‘Should an educational campaign target different consumers with different information?’ and ‘When should a government censor extreme media outlets?'.Read moreRead less