Benjamin Vatter
I am the Class of 1943 Career Development Assistant Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management in the Applied Economics group. My research focuses on competition and policy design, with emphasis on healthcare markets.
I got my Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University in 2022.
Working Papers
(Conditionally Accepted at Econometrica)
Asymmetric information and market power distort quality provision. Simple scores coordinate consumers on higher quality, marshaling their demand to offset producer market power.
With Jose Ignacio Cuesta and Carlos Noton
Hospital-insurer integration leads to skewed plan generosity, harming hospital competition, increasing prices and premiums, and offsetting the gains from reduced double marginalization
Work in Progress
Mergers With Intermediation: The Price Effect of Distant Hospital Mergers
With David Dranove
Employers buy insurance on behalf of employees, aggregating several hospital service markets in a single procurement process. Hospital systems controlling key employer geographies can leverage it in rate negotiations with insurers. Can this explain mounting evidence of cross-service-market merger price effects?
Who Takes Up Incentives to Delay Retirement? Evidence from Chile
With Gaston Illanes and Manisha Padi
Increasing the retirement age is being evaluated or implemented in many countries. What is the cost of delay for workers, and how can we compensate them for it?