About

Gaurab Aryal is an associate professor in the field of empirical industrial organization. He uses game theory and econometrics methods to study markets and industries, focusing on areas with and without informational frictions. His current research includes designing auctions for annuities and high-speed internet for schools, measuring market values of pharmaceutical drugs, analyzing mergers, and understanding the causal link between competition and productivity.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Economics
• Labour economics
• Economic growth

Selected publications

• Desirable Rankings

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Benefits from Bundling Demand in K-12 Broadband Procurement

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-02-01

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We study a new market design for K-12 school broadband procurement that switched from schoolspecific bidding to a system that bundled schools into groups.Using an event study approach, we estimate the program reduced internet prices by 37% per Mbps per month while increasing bandwidth by 500%.These benefits occurred by mitigating exposure risk in broadband procurement -the risk that providers win too few contracts to cover fixed infrastructure costs.Using a bounds approach, we show robustness of our estimates and document that participants saved at least as much as their federal subsidies and experienced substantial welfare gains.

  PublisherDOI

• Bridging Retrospective and Prospective Merger Analyses: The Case of US Airline Mergers

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Benefits from Bundling Demand in K-12 Broadband Procurement

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Bridging Quasi-Experimental and Structural Approaches for Robust Evaluation of US Airline Mergers

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2025-03-20

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We bridge quasi-experimental and structural approaches for robust merger evaluation. First, we show that the difference-in-differences (DiD) equation is the "reduced form" of a structural model, where demand and cost parameters identify price effects of mergers even when the DiD approach faces identification challenges. Second, we propose a $\textit{synthetic GMM}$ approach by applying synthetic DiD weights to structural moment conditions to improve estimates when only a few treated markets are available. Applying this methodology to three airline mergers, we find modest efficiency gains entirely offset by increased coordination. The synthetic GMM refinement sharpens findings, uncovering anti-competitive effects standard approaches miss.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Econometrics of insurance with multidimensional types

  Quantitative Economics · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In this paper, we address the identification and estimation of insurance models where insurees have private information about their risk and risk aversion. The model includes random damages and allows for several claims, while insurees choose from a finite number of coverages. We show that the joint distribution of risk and risk aversion is nonparametrically identified despite bunching due to multidimensional types and a finite number of coverages. Our identification strategy exploits the observed number of claims as well as an exclusion restriction, and a full support assumption. Furthermore, our results apply to any form of competition. We propose a novel estimation procedure combining nonparametric estimators and GMM estimation that we illustrate in a Monte Carlo study.

  PublisherDOI

• The Benefits from Bundling Demand in K-12 Broadband Procurement

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2024-02-11

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We study a new market design for K-12 school broadband procurement that switched from school-specific bidding to a system that bundled schools into groups. Using an event study approach, we estimate that the program reduced internet prices by \$9.17 (55\%) per Mbps per month while increasing bandwidth by 380.06 Mbps (136\%). These benefits resulted primarily from mitigating exposure risk in broadband procurement - the risk that providers win too few contracts to cover their fixed infrastructure costs. Using a bounds approach, we show robustness of our estimates and document that participants saved between \$1.61 million and \$3.48 million, while their existing federal E-rate subsidy was \$2.47 million, and experienced substantial welfare gains.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Bundling Demand in K-12 Broadband Procurement

  2024-07-08

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Access to affordable high-speed broadband is necessary for schools to achieve educational goals. High-speed broadband enhances digital learning, research, and communication among K-12 students. In the US, the federal government promotes connectivity and access to telecommunication services among schools by providing subsidies ("E-rate"). As a condition of the subsidy program, schools must use competitive bidding to choose their internet service providers (ISPs).

  PublisherDOI

• Bundling Demand in K-12 Broadband Procurement

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Common Subcontracting and Airline Prices

  The Review of Economics and Statistics · 2024-02-09 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract In the U.S. airline industry, independent regional airlines fly passengers on behalf of several national airlines across different markets, giving rise to common subcontracting. On the one hand, we find that subcontracting is associated with lower prices, consistent with the notion that regional airlines tend to fly passengers at lower costs than major airlines. On the other hand, we find that common subcontracting is associated with higher prices. These two countervailing effects suggest that the growth of regional airlines can have anticompetitive implications for the industry.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Maria F. Gabrielli

  23 shared

• Federico Ciliberto

  Center for Economic and Policy Research

  18 shared

• Dong-Hyuk Kim

  15 shared

• Quang Vuong

  11 shared

• Manudeep Bhuller

  University of Oslo

  10 shared

• Isabelle Perrigne

  10 shared

• Benjamin T. Leyden

  Cornell University

  8 shared

• Fabian Lange

  6 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  The Pennsylvania State University