Evaluation of the Impact of New Rules in FCC’s Spectrum Incentive Auction
By Elizabeth Lim, Akshaya Trivedi and Frances Mitchell
On March 29, 2016, the FCC initiated its first ever two-sided spectrum auction. The auction closed approximately one year later, having repurposed a total of 84 megahertz (MHz) of spectrum. The “Incentive Auction” included three primary components: (1) a reverse auction where broadcasters bid on the price at which they would voluntarily relinquish their current spectrum usage rights, (2) a forward ascending clock auction for flexible use wireless licenses which determined the winning bids for licenses within a given geographic region, and (3) an assignment phase, where winning bidders from the forward auction participated in single-bid, second price sealed auctions to determine the exact frequencies individual licenses would be assigned within that geographic region. The reverse auction and the forward auction together constituted a “stage.” To guarantee that sufficient MHz were cleared, the auction included a “final stage rule” which, if not met, triggered a clearing of the previous stage and the start of a new stage. This rule led to a total of four stages taking place in the Incentive Auction before the final assignment phase took place. Even at first glance, the Incentive Auction is unique among FCC spectrum auctions. Here we consider the estimated true valuation for these licenses based on market conditions. We further compare these results to more recent outcomes in previous FCC spectrum auctions for wireless services to determine if this novel auction mechanism
impacted auction outcomes.
Advisor: Michelle Connolly | JEL Codes: L5, O3, K2, D44, L96
Market Power & Reciprocity Among Vertically Integrated Cable Providers
By Jeffery Shih-kai Shen
This paper seeks to investigate the effects of vertical integration on the cable industry. There are two main goals that the research paper will attempt to address. The first is to build upon existing research on favoritism shown by multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) to affiliated video programming networks. Second, the paper will use 2007 and 2010 industry data to investigate the possible existence of “quid pro quo” among vertically integrated MVPD cable providers. After evaluating the data with multivariate OLS Regressions, the evidence suggests that MVPD cable providers do tend to carry their own affiliated programming networks. Furthermore, the evidence supports the hypothesis that reciprocity relationships exist among major vertically integrated cable providers.
JEL Codes: C01, D22, K21 | Tagged: Cable Provider, Empirical Analysis, Programming Distributor, Programming Network, Vertical Integration