Job Market Candidate 2025/26
JMP | CV | javier.boncompte.19 at ucl.ac.uk
PhD candidate at University College London. My research interests lie in Industrial Organization and Applied Economics, with a focus on studying how firms compete in the product space and their growth dynamics. I am affiliated with the Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice (CEMMAP) at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).
Partially Observed Reformulation and Equilibrium Effects of Corrective Taxes
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How do corrective taxes work when firms can reformulate products to avoid them? I study the UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy, a multi-tiered tax targeting excessive sugar content introduced in 2018. Using detailed product-level data, I show the levy cut sugar sales by 22% and led firms to reformulate more than one-third of products, reducing average sugar content by 40%. Reformulation limited price increases, preserved consumer surplus and firm profits, and required the adoption of new technologies, but it also muted the tax’s deterrent effect by keeping sugary drinks affordable. I develop and estimate an equilibrium model of product reformulation that accounts for endogenous unobserved characteristics, allowing me to separate unobserved shifts in preferences from product changes and run counterfactuals to isolate the role of reformulation. My results show that reformulation both reduced sugar intake relative to a no-policy baseline and constrained the tax’s ability to discourage consumption. More broadly, my findings reveal that tax design can shape firms’ product decisions with implications for optimal taxation and corrective food policies.
Growing in Foreign Markets: Customer Churning and Bilateral Bargaining
[
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Show AbstractUsing a factor structure within an equilibrium model of product reformulation, I capture the endogenous link between sugar content and unobserved characteristics and estimate that reformulation prevented an additional 10% price increase, significantly reducing the tax burden on consumers, but at the cost of lower product quality. Smaller firms were more adversely affected, while larger firms adopted new technologies and reformulated a greater share of their portfolios. These results underscore how effective tax design can promote innovation and reduce the harm potential of products, lessening the need for further corrective measures and aligning economic efficiency with equity.
Compatibility Choices of Websites and the Demand for Web Browsers
[
Download] with Giussepe Forte
Show AbstractUsing a factor structure within an equilibrium model of product reformulation, I capture the endogenous link between sugar content and unobserved characteristics and estimate that reformulation prevented an additional 10% price increase, significantly reducing the tax burden on consumers, but at the cost of lower product quality. Smaller firms were more adversely affected, while larger firms adopted new technologies and reformulated a greater share of their portfolios. These results underscore how effective tax design can promote innovation and reduce the harm potential of products, lessening the need for further corrective measures and aligning economic efficiency with equity.
Python implementation of several Interactive Fixed Effects (IFE) estimators for panel data. Includes methods for both balanced panels (Bai, 2009) and unbalanced panels (Bai et al., 2015; Cui et al., 2022), with a focus on computational efficiency.
CORE Econ Interactive Lecture on Inflation
Interactive lecture on inflation and central banks designed for CORE Econ , featuring dynamic visualizations and real-time Q&A powered by Voici; a free, open-source, serverless tool for delivering interactive R and Python simulations to large scale classrooms. Successfully tested with over 80 students simultaneously.