2025 - Reprints: Managerial Economics
Immigration and the Short- and Long-Term Impact of Improved Prenatal Conditions, The Economic Journal, 134(662), 2494-2529, 2024
V. Lavy, A. Schlosser and A. Shany
(Reprint No.: 443)
Research No.: 08590100
This paper investigates the effects of immigration from a developing country to a developed country during pregnancy on offspring outcomes. We focus on intermediate- and long-term outcomes, using quasi-experimental variation created by the immigration of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in May 1991. Individuals conceived before immigration experienced dramatic changes in their environmental conditions at different stages of prenatal development depending on their gestational age at migration. We find that females whose mothers immigrated at an earlier gestational age have better educational outcomes. They also tend to work more as adults. In contrast, we do not find any effect among males.
Exercising Market Power Without Using Prices: Service Time in Online Grocery, Management Science, 71(1), 2024
I. Ater and A. Shany Ater and A. Shany
(Reprint No.: 444)
Research No.: 08521100
This paper studies how online grocers use service time to respond to local competition and demand conditions when prices are uniformly set at the national level. Using comprehensive data collected twice a week over three years from 172 Israeli local markets, we show that an online grocer sets identical prices in all markets. By contrast, service time is shorter in more competitive markets and on low-demand days. Next, we exploit regional and temporal variation in entry decisions to examine how the incumbent adjusts its service time when new online grocers enter the market. The incumbent’s service time falls significantly on low-demand days and in monopolistic markets. This decrease begins shortly before entry and is greater when the entrant poses a larger competitive threat. On high-demand days and in competitive markets we do not find a significant change in service time in the months surrounding entry. Our findings suggest that firms use service time to exercise their local market power when prices are unresponsive and that operational considerations affect the extent to which they respond.
