Michael Rubens is an Assistant Professor of Economics at UCLA and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research is in the field of industrial organization and covers topics related to vertical contracting, monopsony/oligopsony power, and firm productivity.
Working Papers
(7) Welfare Effects of Buyer and Seller Power (with Mert Demirer)
(6) Labor-Market Power, Deadweight Loss, and Technology Adoption
August 2025 – PDF
Published and Accepted
(5) Exploiting or Augmenting Labor? (with Yingjie Wu and Mingzhi Xu)
American Economic Review: Insights, Forthcoming, June 2025
(4) Estimating Factor Price Markdowns using Production Models (with Yingjie Wu and Mingzhi Xu)
International Journal of Industrial Organization , 102(103177), September 2025 (Special Issue EARIE)
(3) Colluding Against Workers (with Vincent Delabastita)
Journal of Political Economy, 133(6) pp. 1796-1839, June 2025
(2) Market Structure, Oligopsony Power, and Productivity
American Economic Review, 113(9) pp. 2382-2410, September 2023
PDF Appendix Replication VoxDev Article Chicago Booth Review
(1) Management, Productivity, and Technology Choices: Evidence from U.S. Mining Schools
RAND Journal of Economics, 54(1), pp. 165-186 , March 2023
In Progress
Conduct in U.S. Labor Markets (with Bradley Setzler and Chen Yeh )