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Eugenia Menaguale

@eumena.bsky.social

PhD Candidate in Economics at Princeton University. Interested in Macroeconomics and International Trade. On the 2025-2026 academic job market.

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Eugenia Menaguale @eumena.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

@reddingecon.bsky.social

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Eugenia Menaguale @eumena.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

⭐ TL;DR: Some superstar firms don’t just sell technology — they engineer the skills that make it indispensable.  Market power can hinder allocation but also fuel learning. Read the paper 👉 eumena.github.io/files/em_jmp...

eumena.github.io

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Eugenia Menaguale @eumena.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Why do we care? ⚖️Regulators often see big tech’s “free” tools as pro-competitive.  🤯 But these giveaways can reshape labor markets and the direction of technological specialization. 🧠Competition policy needs to account for the skill-formation channel of market power. 7/7

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Eugenia Menaguale @eumena.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

🧩How does it all fit together? The logic: 1️⃣ Google makes it easier (cheaper) to learn TensorFlow. 2️⃣ More workers acquire the skill. 3️⃣ More firms adopt compatible cloud tools. 4️⃣ Google’s ecosystem (and rents ) grow. Training is a strategic lever of market power. 6/n

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Eugenia Menaguale @eumena.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Empirically, I study Google’s open-sourcing of TensorFlow in 2015, a turning point in AI skill diffusion. After the release:  📈 Firms adopting Google Cloud Platform surged.  👩‍💻 Demand for ML skills rose.  💰 Wage premia for those skills declined as the trained workforce expanded. 5/n

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Eugenia Menaguale @eumena.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

This creates a policy-relevant trade-off: - Market power distorts resource allocation. - But it can also stimulate investment in high-quality training that diffuses advanced technology. Some monopolists, paradoxically, teach the world to use their tools. 4/n

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Eugenia Menaguale @eumena.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

I build a general-equilibrium model where technology providers decide both: 1. how much to subsidize training in their ecosystem’s skills, and 2. how much to charge firms for using their capital. Their market power lets them internalize how training affects adoption and wages. 3/n

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Eugenia Menaguale @eumena.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

When production depends on technology-specific skills, dominant providers of that technology (e.g. cloud platforms or equipment makers) have a stake in making those skills abundant. Even if the trained workers never work for them directly, more skilled users = higher demand for their technology.2/n

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Eugenia Menaguale @eumena.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

💡 Why would a firm spend millions teaching workers it doesn’t even employ? From open-sourcing to free certifications, superstar firms often train the workforce of their customers. My JMP explains why. 🧵👇 1/n

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