Pricing and Pack Size Brand, Quantity, and Cost Considerations in Pricing Multipacks of Toothpaste
By Stephanie Wiehe The US market for toothpaste, like many other goods, is shifting towards selling in bulk. Multipacks of toothpaste require quantity discounts to incentivize consumers, making buying in bulk a great deal for the savings-minded toothpaste-shopper. It is more difficult to understand, however, producers’ willingness to sell multipacks of toothpaste, when margins are […]
ICT Behavior at the Periphery: Exploring the Social Effect of the Digital Divide through Interest in Video Streaming
By Erik W. Hanson and Justin C. LoTurco We investigate the factors that influence changes in consumer behavior with regard to video streaming. We focus our analysis on the effect of bandwidth impairment to explore a potential consequence of the digital divide. To measure the change in relative popularity of video streaming services, we use […]
Does Media Coverage of Sexual Assault Cases Cause Victims to Go to the Police? Evidence from FBI Data and Google Trends
By Harry Elworthy This paper investigates the effect that national news coverage of prominent sexual assaults has on the reporting decisions of sexual assault victims. Estimates are based on time series data of reports made to police stations in the US from 2008 to 2016 and Google Trends data of search volume, along with an […]
Investigating a Case of Alleged Collusion in Michigan Public Oil and Gas Lease Auctions
By Lucas Do The state of Michigan administers oil and gas lease auctions semiannually through the Department of Natural Resources. In June 2012, the international news outlet Reuters published allegations of bid-rigging following the Department’s May 2010 auction. This paper empirically investigates the validity of Reuters’ allegations by analyzing auction bid sheets from 2008 to […]
The Impact of Collegiate Athletic Success and Scandals on Admissions Applications
By William J. Battle-McDonald This paper examines how the quantity and quality of admissions applications to Division 1 colleges and universities were affected by two non-academic factors: (1) performance of a school’s men’s basketball and football teams; and (2) scandals associated with these athletic programs. Admissions data from 2001 – 2017 were compared to team […]
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 […]
Regulatory Uncertainty: The Impact of the 2015 Open Internet Order on Broadband Infrastructure Investment
By Dane Bourcy Burkholder and Chin Jie Lim This paper analyzes the impact of the United States Federal Communication’s (FCC) March 2015 Open Internet Order (OIO) on broadband infrastructure investment outcomes such as changes in speed of services, market entry. We find that higher broadband investment levels deter potential entrants and may weed out competition […]
A Brief Review and Analysis of Spectrum Auctions in Canada
by Martínez-Cid, Wenfei Jiao, and Zeren Zhang Abstract We begin by explaining the importance of efficient spectrum allocation and reviewing Canada’s recent spectrum allocation history. We then use a dataset covering more than 1,200 licenses auctioned from 2001 to 2015 that seeks to account for each auction’s particular rules. Our results confirm that measures of […]
Small Bidder Preferences in FCC Spectrum Auctions
By Alexandra Zrenner and Chidinma Hannah Nnoromele The Federal Communications Commission faces a congressional mandate to ensure the participation of small business in its spectrum auctions. The FCC addresses this mandate using preferences for small bidders. This paper examines the impact on auction competition and outcomes of two preferences: bid credits and closed licenses. Bid […]
Structural Estimation of FCC Bidder Valuation
By Renhao Tan, Zachary Lim, and Jackie Xiao We modify a method introduced in Fox and Bajari (2013) which structurally estimates the deterministic component of bidder valuations in FCC spectrum auctions based on a pairwise stability condition: two bidders cannot exchange two licenses in a way that increases the sum of their valuations, and we […]
