Research

I study how institutions shape discovery.

Much of modern social science studies choices within existing rules. My work asks how rules shape the space of possibilities itself. Which experiments become feasible? Which forms of cooperation are encouraged? Which business models, technologies, and organizational forms never emerge because permission structures make them illegal, too cumbersome, unfundable, or too risky to try?

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Forgone Innovation

This project examines forgone innovation: the discoveries, business models, and forms of organization that never emerge because rules prevent them from being tried.

The project builds on my European Economic Review article, Forgone Innovation: Regulation as Pruning of the Adjacent Possible. The core idea is that regulation should be understood not only as a source of compliance costs, but also as a force that can narrow the set of possible experiments. Innovation is often combinatorial. New possibilities emerge when people recombine existing technologies, practices, contracts, data, and institutions. Rules can shape which combinations are legal, fundable, insurable, or safe enough to attempt.

I am now extending this framework into health care. Health care is a useful starting point because the sector combines extraordinary technical capability with unusually dense permission structures. Payment rules, licensure, ownership restrictions, data governance, liability, and clinical protocols do not merely affect prices. They affect what kinds of care can be organized in the first place.

The next stage of this work is a Forgone Innovation Diagnostic: a way to make blocked discovery visible. One source of evidence is lawful exit. When patients, clinicians, or entrepreneurs move toward direct primary care, cash-pay surgical bundles, medical tourism, concierge care, wellness subscriptions, or alternative data tools, they reveal where the conventional system blocks experimentation. These exits are not only workarounds. They are diagnostic signals.

The long-term goal is to build a comparative framework that can be extended beyond health care to other regulated sectors, including housing, education, childcare, energy, transportation, financial technology, agriculture, and digital markets.

Forgone Innovation: Regulation as Pruning of the Adjacent Possible
European Economic Review, 2026
Lead article for this research program. Develops the framework for understanding regulation as pruning the adjacent possible.

Understanding Medicare’s Impact on Innovation: A Framework for Policy Reform
Mercatus Research, 2018
Earlier work on health care policy, institutional incentives, and innovation.