SONIA JAFFE www.soniajaffe.com [email protected]

HARVARD UNIVERSITY Placement Director: Gita Gopinath [email protected] 617-495-8161 Placement Director: Nathan Nunn [email protected] 617-496-4958 Graduate Administrator: Brenda Piquet [email protected] 617-495-8927

Office Contact: Graduate Student Office, Littauer Center 1805 Cambridge Street Cambridge MA 02138 Cell: 617-331-3232

Undergraduate Studies: , Bachelor of with Honors 2004-2008 Graduate Studies: , PhD Candidate in Economics 2009-Present • Thesis: Essays in Applied Microeconomic Theory • Expected Completion: June, 2015 • References Professor Roland Fryer (Chair) Professor Edward Glaeser [email protected] [email protected] 617-495-9592 617-496-2150 Professor David Laibson Professor Steven Levitt [email protected] [email protected] 617-496-3402 773-834-1862 Teaching and Research Fields: • Primary Fields: Applied Theory, Public Finance • Secondary Fields: Industrial Organization,

Teaching and Advising Experience: 2012-2013 Price Theory, University of Chicago, Teaching fellow for Professors and Kevin Murphy 2011-2012 Department of Economics, Harvard University Concentration advisor for undergraduates Research Employment: Summer 2010 Bureau of Economics, Federal Trade Commission; Student Assistant (Economics) 2006-2008 Department of Economics, University of Chicago; Research Assistant for Professor Steven Levitt Honors: Bradley Fellowship, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation 2014 Pre-doctoral Scholar, Becker Friedman Institute 2012-2013 IQSS Graduate Fellowship, Institute for Quantitative Social Sciences 2012 NSF Graduate Fellowship, National Science Foundation 2011-2014 Terence M. Considine Fellow in Law and Economics, 2011 John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Business Presidential Scholar Fellowship, Harvard University 2009-2011

Publications: B. Edelman, S. Jaffe, and S. D. Kominers, “To Groupon or not to Groupon: The profitability of deep discounts,” Marketing Letters, Forthcoming S. Jaffe and E. G. Weyl, “The first-order approach to merger analysis,” American Economic Jour- nal: , vol. 5, no. 4, 2013 S. Jaffe and S. D. Kominers, “Discrete choice cannot generate demand that is additively separable in own-price,” Economics Letters, vol. 166, no. 1, 2012 S. Jaffe and E. G. Weyl, “Price theory and the merger guidelines,” CPI Antitrust Chronicle, vol. 3, no. 1, 2011 B. Edelman, S. Jaffe, and S. D. Kominers, “To Groupon or not to Groupon: New research on voucher profitability,” Harvard Business Review [Blog], 2011 S. Jaffe and E. G. Weyl, “Linear demand systems are inconsistent with discrete choice,” Berkeley Electronic Journal of Theoretical Economics: Advances, vol. 10, no. 1, 2010 Research Papers: “Matching Markets with Taxation of Transfers,” joint with Scott Kominers. Job market paper

We analyze the effects of taxation on outcomes in matching markets. Taxes can make inefficient outcomes stable by causing workers to prefer firms from which they receive high idiosyncratic match utility, but at which they are less productive. In general, efficiency can be non-monotonic in the tax. However, when agents on one side of the market refuse to match without a positive wage, increasing taxes always decreases efficiency. In addition to providing a continuous link between canonical models of matching with and without transfers, our model highlights a cost of taxation that does not appear to have been examined previously.

“Large-scale Analysis of Level-k Thinking: Facebook’s Roshambull,” joint with Dimitris Batzilis, Steven Levitt, John A. List and Jeffrey Picel.

We use a large dataset to explore whether, and to what extent, existing theories of strategic play describe actual behavior in the field. In a simultaneous move, zero- sum game–rock-paper-scissors–with varying information, we find that many people employ strategies consistent with Nash equilibrium. We also find that players respond predictably to incentives of the game: they use information effectively and are more strategic when the expected payoffs to acting strategically increase. Deviations from Nash are somewhat consistent with non-equilibrium models: we find that some people employ strategies resembling k1 of the level-k framework, and others use strategies resembling quantal response.

“Lab Experiments on Transfers in Matching Markets.” “Price-linked Subsidies and Health Insurance Markups,” joint with Mark Shepard. Professional Activities: Presentations − Conference on Optimization, Transportation and Equilibrium in Economics, Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences (Scheduled) − Workshop on Advances in Market Design, Paris School of Economics (2013) − Theory Lunch Economics Workshop, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2013) − Business Economics Seminar, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto (2013) − AEA Annual Meetings: Demand Systems and Imperfect Competition (2013) − Matching Problems: Economics Meets Mathematics, Becker Friedman Institute at the Uni- versity of Chicago (2012) − Seminar in the Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences Department, Norwestern Uni- versity (2012) − AEA Annual Meetings: Merger Analysis and Policy (2012) − The 4th Annual Federal Trade Commission Microeconomics Conference (2011) − The 4th Annual Searle Research Symposium on Antitrust Economics and Competition Policy (2011) − The 9th Annual International Industrial Organization Conference (2011) Refereeing The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, Economics Letters, Journal of Industrial Eco- nomics, Journal of Health Economics, The RAND Journal of Economics. Other Co-organizer of “Segregation: Measurement, Causes, and Effects,” a conference of the In- equality: Measurement, Interpretation, and Policy Network