A Franchise Education: The Impact of High School Quality on the Operations of Quick Service Restaurant Franchises in Texas
By Joseph Yetter While the franchise business model provides customers with a certain level of consistency, there is still considerable variation in service quality across locations. Among other factors, a franchise’s quality of human capital (i.e., its workers) contributes to the quality of its operations, one of the strongest determinants of its revenue. Assuming that […]
Video Game Sales: Does Diversity Pay?
By Hai Lin “Helena” Wu The video game industry has grown into a mature market in the past decade, surpassing the size of the U.S. film industry in 2009. As a result of the rise in popularity of video gaming amongst many demographic groups of the American population, the underrepresentation of female and ethnic minorities […]
The Impact of Online Streaming on Primetime Viewership An Econometric Analysis of Technological Change, Network Practices and Audience Behavior
By Yeshwanth Kandimalla This study considers the impact of online streaming on the viewership of popular primetime programs aired on four major U.S broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. The time period considered will begin with the 2004-2005 TV season through the 2011-2012 season. Technological change, primarily with faster Internet speeds, spurred some growth […]
Debunking the Cost-Shifting Myth: An Analysis of Dnamic Price Discrimination in California Hospitals
By Omar Nazzal Cost-shifting, a dynamic form of price discrimination, is a phenomenon in which hospitals shift the burden of decreases in government-sponsored healthcare reimbursement rates to private health insurers. In this paper, I construct a data set spanning 2007 – 2011 that matches financial metrics of California hospitals to hospital- and market-specific characteristics with […]
The Effects of Digital Media on Advertising Markets
By Bradford Lightcap and William Anthony Peek This paper examines the viability of sustained advertising spending in an increasingly digital age. Beginning with print media and through the advent of television, the ad market has seen vast evolution in information consumption. The result has been a creative adaptability by advertisers to keep pace with said […]
Price Partitioning and Consumer Rationality in Internet Retail Markets
By Katherine Bodnar This paper seeks to further understand the bounds of consumer rationality and search on the Internet. Specifically this paper focuses on how consumers respond to partitioned prices when making their purchasing decisions. The goal of the paper is to determine if consumers are as sensitive to explicitly stated shipping prices, as they […]
The Influence Effect of Critics’ Reviews on Foreign and Domestic Movies
By Jayoung Jeon and Luxuan Jiao Critics and their reviews provide crucial information for consumers in many “experience goods” markets, and the movie market is one such market. Through their impact on the consumer’s film selection, critics’ reviews influence the first weekend box office performance (the influence effect). We hypothesize that the influence effect of […]
Game Theory and The World Marathon Majors
By Benjamin Jones The World Marathon Majors (WMM) Series Prize was enacted in 2006 as a million dollar prize handed out annually to the top man and woman competing at five of the most important marathons. This paper considers the motivations behind setting up this prize, as well as the theoretical rationale for its existence […]
