Eric San Miguel

I am a PhD candidate in Economics at Penn State, specializing in industrial organization, health economics, and applied microeconomics. My research applies structural demand estimation, merger simulation, and bargaining models to problems in health care and antitrust.

In my job market paper, I study how Medicare affects the quality of hospital care and the welfare of both Medicare and commercially insured patients. I build and estimate a structural model of hospital quality choice and hospital–insurer bargaining in which quality attracts both Medicare and commercial patients, affects negotiated prices, and increases the cost of treating patients. Using Medicare and commercial claims from Massachusetts, I study how quality and welfare change as the Medicare share rises, through population aging or a lower eligibility age, and what happens when Medicare raises its rates or makes them more responsive to quality.

In other work, I study a wave of mergers that followed price deregulation in the Mexico City retail gasoline market and show that post-merger price increases can reflect cost and quality changes rather than market power. I also have ongoing work on the political selection of criminal candidates in Indian elections.