Economics Commons^™

The Legal Periphery Of Dominant Firm Conduct, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay explores two different but related problems and how U.S. antitrust law and EU competition law approach them. The first is the offense of attempt to monopolize, which concerns the acts that a firm that is not yet dominant might undertake in order to become dominant. The second is the offense of monopoly or dominant firm leveraging, which occurs when a firm uses its dominant position in one market to cause some kind of harm in a different market where it also does business.

The language of EU and U.S. provisions concerning dominant firms provokes one to think that …

Essential Entry: Revenues In The 700 Mhz Spectrum Auction, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

A common misconception is that an open access provision on a sliver of the 700 MHz spectrum would reduce auction revenues. In fact, the open access, wholesale, and bidding credit provisions put forth by Frontline Wireless, will motivate new entry, enhance competition in the auction, and raise revenues.

Revenues In The 700 Mhz Spectrum Auction, Peter Cramton, Andrzej Skrzypacz, Robert Wilson

Peter Cramton

There have been several comments that criticize auction rules that prevent the two major low-frequency incumbents from winning all of the newly available spectrum and incorporating it into their proprietary networks. Such rules include new-entrant set-asides, new-entrant bidding credits, and the open access plan. We disagree with these criticisms and argue that given the current market structure, such rules are likely to improve welfare and auction revenues. We are submitting this report to provide sound economic analysis of these claims.

Product Design For Colombia’S Regulated Market, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

This paper presents a product design for Colombia’s regulated market (MOR), which is scheduled to began in 2008. The regulated market consists of residential and other small customers. Currently, regulated customers represent 69% of the total load. I propose a market based on a single load-following product in which each supplier bids to serve its desired share of the Colombia regulated load. Thus, a supplier that wins a 10% share at auction has an obligation to serve 10% of the actual regulated load in every hour of the commitment period. The supplier is paid the MOR clearing price for every …

A Control Theory Model Of Pricing For A Firm Facing A Stochastic Environment – A Firm’S Dynamic Pricing Strategy When Faced With The Threat Of Antitrust Action, Manak Gupta, Atin Basu Choudhary

Atin Basu Choudhary

No abstract provided.

Silence Is Golden: Communication, Silence, And Cartel Stability, Atin Basu Choudhary, John Conlon

Atin Basu Choudhary

This paper studies how cartel stability is influenced by asymmetric information and communication about demand. Firms in a cartel face fluctuating demand in a repeated game framework. In each period, one randomly chosen firm knows current demand. In this context we consider two different equilibria -- one where the informed firm communicates its information to its partners and another where it does not. We show that cartels are extremely unstable when the informed firm communicates with the uninformed firms. However, when the informed firm does not communicate with the uninformed firms cartels can be as stable as when there are …

Market-Based Alternatives For Managing Congestion At New York’S Laguardia Airport, Peter Cramton, Michael O. Ball, Lawrence M. Ausubel, Frank Berardino, George Donohue, Mark Hansen, Karla Hoffman

Peter Cramton

We summarize the results of a project that was motivated by the expiration of the “High Density Rule,” which defined the slot controls employed at New York’s LaGuardia Airport for more than 30 years. The scope of the project included the analysis of several administrative measures, congestion pricing options and slot auctions. The research output includes a congestion pricing procedure and also the specification of a slot auction mechanism. The research results are based in part on two strategic simulations. These were multi-day events that included the participation of airport operators, most notably the Port Authority of New York and …

Estimating Demand Elasticities Of Fixed Telephony In Brazil, Gustavo Manfrim, Sergio Da Silva

Sergio Da Silva

This paper provides estimates of the elasticities of demand for the Brazilian basic plan of local fixed telephony using a cointegration model. We find a long-run price elasticity of –0.24, and an income elasticity of 0.18. These figures are in line with other countries’ estimates.

La Convergencia Y El Principio De La Neutralidad Tecnológica, Víctor Pavón-Villamayor

Víctor Pavón-Villamayor

No abstract provided.

Why We Need To Stick With Uniform-Price Auctions In Electricity Markets, Peter Cramton, Steven Stoft

Peter Cramton

Wholesale electricity markets are commonly organized around a spot energy market. Buyers and suppliers submit bids and offers for each hour and the market is cleared at the price that balances supply and demand. Buyers with bids above the clearing price pay that price, and suppliers with offers below the clearing price are paid that same price. This uniform-price auction, which occurs both daily and throughout the day, is complemented by forward energy markets. In practice, between 80 and 95 percent of wholesale electricity is traded in forward energy markets, often a month, or a year, and sometimes many years …