Mikko Packalen
Assistant
Professor
Economics
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packalen@uwaterloo.ca
+1 519 888
4567 ext. 33413
Department of
Economics,
200
University Avenue West,
Waterloo, ON
N2L 3G1, Canada
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Current Research Interests
Innovation Science Text as Data Health Firm
Productivity
Research
Papers
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Words in Patents: Research Inputs and the Value of Innovativeness in Invention (with Jay Bhattacharya) New! Innovation
Science Text as Data Empirical |
Shows how to organically identify research inputs based on text. Shows how to measure innovativeness and its value. Shows how to distinguish between citations that reflect the cumulative nature of invention and citations that may merely reflect similarity |
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Opportunities and Benefits
as Determinants of the Direction of Scientific Research (with
Jay Bhattacharya) Journal of Health Economics (2011) Earlier version with also pharmaceutical industry analysis is here. Innovation Science Text as Data Health Econometrics Empirical
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Shows that the induced
innovation hypothesis holds also for scientific research. Shows how to
estimate the quality of research opportunities from textual information. |
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The Other Ex-Ante Moral Hazard in Health (with Jay Bhattacharya) Journal of Health Economics (2012) Earlier version with a less formal model and disease-specific analysis is here. Innovation Science Health Theory
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Shows that obesity should
be subsidized due to impacts on inventor reward and induced innovation. Shows
that quantitatively this mechanism can be as important as the insurance ex
ante moral hazard examined in Ehrlich and Becker (1972). |
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Inference about Clustering and Parametric Assumptions in Covariance Matrix Estimation (with Tony Wirjanto) Computational Statistics and Data Analysis (2012) Econometrics |
Shows why the White (1980) standard
errors test often performs poorly and proposes a testing strategy that
improves power from 0.04 to 0.82. |
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Identification and
Estimation of Social Interactions through Variation in Equilibrium Influence Under Revision Econometrics |
Shows how to set estimate
social interaction effects using instrumental variables built by combining
constructed conditionally balanced network structures and observations on the
outcome variable. |
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Complements and Potential
Competition International Journal of Industrial Organization (2010) Innovation Competition
Policy Theory |
Shows how and when the impact of cooperation by complementors on induced innovation overturns the double
monopoly result of Cournot (1838). |
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Revise-and-Resubmit Innovation Competition
Policy Theory |
Shows how and when induced
innovation and externalities among buyers render market share exclusion
profitable when complete exclusion is not. |
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Static and Dynamic Merger Effects: A Market Share Based Empirical Analysis (with Anindya Sen) Submitted Competition
Policy Empirical |
Shows that the presence of
merger-specific efficiencies can be detected from within-market comparisons
of the evolution of market shares over time. |
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On the Learnability of
Rational Expectations Equilibria in Three Business
Cycle Models Lic.Soc.Sci Thesis (2000) Expectations and Learning Theory |
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Adaptive Learning of
Rational Expectations: A Neural Network Approach English version of M.Soc.Sci
Thesis (1998) Expectations and Learning Theory |
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Teaching
Academic Year 2012-13:
101 Introduction to Microeconomics
321 Introduction to Econometrics
Academic Year 2011-12
201 Microeconomic Theory
Academic Year 2010-11
321 Introduction to Econometrics (undergraduate; instructor rating 4.6/5.0)
This course is an introduction to statistical analysis
of choice-based behaviour. The learning objective is the ability to determine
whether an estimated effect is a good estimate of the unknown true effect.
Reaching this objective gives student the skill to determine whether analyses
in news and research articles are informative by first mapping the analysis to
the regression framework and then forming beliefs about the relationship
between observed and unobserved explanatory variables.
Course Materials: 8 Problem Sets, 4 Mid-term Exams,
Final Exam, Notes, Slides, Textbook: “Introduction to Econometrics” by Stock
and Watson. To provide incentives to study and to emphasize the role of
incentives in economics, student evaluation is effort-based in that exams
follow the problem sets closely. While students have a realistic chance at
achieving the perfect grade, students should keep in mind that success in this
course typically requires weekly effort throughout the semester due to the
challenging nature of the material covered in the final exam. Questions involve
formal proofs of consistency of estimators, use of graphical analysis and
intuition to determine consistency of estimators, and computer programming. To
emphasize the role of knowledge retrieval in learning, there are 5 exams.
Students should pick up and discuss each of the first three mid-term exams from
the instructor in person to address gaps in learning early.
201 Microeconomic Theory (undergraduate; instructor rating 4.6/5.0)
This course is an introduction to formal microeconomic
analysis of behaviour, interactions, and economic policy. The main learning
objective is the ability to understand and show formally when self-interest
alone can lead to good allocations and when economic policy can improve upon
allocations determined by self-interest alone. Reaching this objective gives
student the skill to identify external effects on others as the main economic
justification for policy interventions.
Course Materials: 8 Problem Sets, 4 Mid-term Exams,
Final Exam, Notes, Slides, Textbook: “Intermediate Microeconomics” by Varian.
To provide incentives to study and to emphasize the role of incentives in
economics, student evaluation is effort-based in that exams follow the problem
sets closely. While students have a realistic chance at achieving the perfect
grade, students should keep in mind that success in this course typically
requires weekly effort throughout the semester due to the challenging nature of
the material covered in the final exam. Questions include
algebraic proof and implications of the First Welfare Theorem and derivation of
a Nash Equilibrium in a model with externalities and continuous choice. To
emphasize the role of knowledge retrieval in learning, there are 5 exams.
Students should pick up and discuss each of the first three mid-term exams from
the instructor in person to address gaps in learning early.
Academic Year 2009-10
201 Microeconomic Theory (undergraduate; instructor rating 4.3/5.0)
648 Innovation and Intellectual Property in Industrial Organization (graduate; instructor rating 5.0/5.0)
Academic Year 2008-9
648 Innovation and Intellectual Property in Industrial Organization (graduate; instructor rating 5.0/5.0)
673 Applied Microeconometrics I (graduate; instructor rating 5.0/5.0)
Academic Year 2007-8
201 Microeconomic Theory (undergraduate; instructor rating 4.4/5.0)
648 Innovation and Intellectual Property in Industrial Organization (graduate; instructor rating 4.7/5.0)
