Industrial Organization Commons^™

Essays On Bank Performance, Strategic Behavior, And Community Development With A Focus On Minority Depository Institutions And The Political Economy Of Forgiving Student Loans, Guncha Babajanova

All Dissertations

I explore questions related to financial institutions, the accessibility of financial services, community development, and the political economy of forgiving student loans using the ideas from spatial economics, industrial organization, and public choice. Increased access to financial services improves the economic outcomes of individuals and firms in the community. Understanding sources leading to a lower accessibility of financial services is integral for an effective endeavor to lower barriers to financial services with far-reaching policy and economic implications. The economic literature provides evidence of the beneficial effects of increased access to financial services as well as the adverse effects of diminished …

Essays On The Economics Of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations, Aspen Underwood

All Dissertations

Electric vehicles (EVs) have peaked people’s interest since the first electric-powered vehicle was developed in the 1830’s. By the 1890’s EVs were the most common vehicle in the U.S. However, due to issues with charging batteries and limitations of the electrical grid, EVs were left behind as gasoline vehicles became commonly available in the early 20th century. Several attempts to repopularize EVs over the last 100 years suffered from difficulties with limited driving ranges, but today, expanded driving ranges and improved charging capabilities have made EVs a real alternative to gasoline engines. The possibility of zero-emission transportation made possible by …

Eco 330: Sports Economics Oer Curation, Chealsye Bowley

Curated OER Collections

This OER curation is an annotated bibliography of prospective OER for the GVSU course ECO 330: Sports Economics, assembled by request from the instructor.

Digital Cluster Markets, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper considers the role of “cluster” markets in antitrust litigation, the minimum requirements for recognizing such markets, and the relevance of network effects in identifying them.

One foundational requirement of markets in antitrust cases is that they consist of products that are very close substitutes for one another. Even though markets are nearly always porous, this principle is very robust in antitrust analysis and there are few deviations.

Nevertheless, clustering noncompeting products into a single market for purposes of antitrust analysis can be valuable, provided that its limitations are understood. Clustering contributes to market power when (1) many customers …

Infrastructure Investment And European Economic Growth, John Ziolo

Global Tides

As the global economy continues to recover from the impacts of Covid-19, there is significant discussion among policymakers as to the best mechanisms to stimulate recovery. One of those mechanisms is infrastructure investment. There is a large contingent of policymakers who believe that large, immediate spending on infrastructure will lead to significant economic growth. While another group is concerned about the secondary effects of such large government spending packages. With global economies still digging out of the covid shock and supply chains struggling to keep up with demand, there is no better time to explore the topic. This paper then …

Maturity Model For Customer-Centric Approach In Enterprise: The Case Of E-Commerce And Online Retail Industry, Soheil Zarrin

Dissertations and Theses

The network technologies are changing the dynamics of the interaction between customer and provider. Customers demand closer relationships and higher investment between partners, as well as cooperation between companies to build supporting technologies for their unique needs. Customer-centricity is defined as interaction with the customer through various touchpoints and aggregating these relations to create a position for the customer. Each Customer has a different need and expectation from the provider or seller, and companies need to be flexible enough to fulfill their needs. One of the reasons organizations invest less in customer experience is that they believe they are already …

Ethical Ai Development: Evidence From Ai Startups, James Bessen, Stephen Michael Impink, Lydia Reichensperger, Robert Seamans

Faculty Scholarship

Artificial Intelligence startups use training data as direct inputs in product development. These firms must balance numerous trade-offs between ethical issues and data access without substantive guidance from regulators or existing judicial precedence. We survey these startups to determine what actions they have taken to address these ethical issues and the consequences of those actions. We find that 58% of these startups have established a set of AI principles. Startups with data-sharing relationships with high-technology firms; that were impacted by privacy regulations; or with prior (non-seed) funding from institutional investors are more likely to establish ethical AI principles. Lastly, startups …

Regenerative Tourism Model: Challenges Of Adapting Concepts From Natural Science To Tourism Industry, Asif Hussain, Marie Haley

Journal of Sustainability and Resilience

The study proposes a regenerative tourism model. The application of the natural science ideas of regeneration needs to be clarified before the tourism industry can adopt a regenerative tourism model. Without such clarification, there is a high risk of ‘green washing’ and inappropriate adaption of a regenerative model. The borrowing of natural science to industry and its application in social sciences confuse the essence of the true concept of regeneration. In a regenerative agriculture context restoring a holistic system that mimics nature and includes social and economic spheres contributes to improving the whole system. When a social system aims to …

The Progressives' Antitrust Toolbox, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

The period 1900 to 1930 was the Golden Age of antitrust theory, if not of enforcement. During that period courts and scholars developed nearly all of the tools that we use to this day to assess anticompetitive practices under the federal antitrust laws. In subsequent years antitrust policy veered to both the left and the right, but today seems to be returning to a position quite similar to the one that these Progressive adopted. Their principal contributions were (1) partial equilibrium analysis, which became the basis for concerns about economic concentration, the distinction between short- and long-run analysis, and later …

Measuring The Contribution Of The Ocean: A Comparison Of The Statistical Classification Of The Marine Economy Used By China And Canada, Weiling Song, Jing Guo, Yuxin Liu, Yue Yin, Yue Wang

Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics

Most of the major marine countries share an identical knowledge about marine economy. Ocean-related principle is the primary principles which distinguish the ocean economy from national economy and other economies. The understandings of marine economy from various countries all take into consideration the ocean-relativeness character geographically or industrially. However, there are certain differences in statistical frameworks and specific industrial classifications. In this paper, the statistical classification of marine economy between China and Canada is comparatively studied from the perspectives of the connotation of marine economy, the classification of regional statistics, and the classification of industrial statistics. Moreover, the identification of …

From Monterey To Galway: Evolution Of The Oceans In National Income Accounts, Stephen Hynes, Charles S. Colgan

Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics

This paper provides an introduction and overview of selected papers from the 5th International Symposium on the Oceans in National Income Accounts organized by the Socio-Economics Marine Research Unit at the National University of Ireland Galway in March 2021. Eleven papers drawn from the symposium are included in this volume. The papers cover the current status of defining the ocean economy within national accounts, the expansion of ocean accounting to include environmental economic values, and methodological tools to assist the integration.

Monopolizing Digital Commerce, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

Section 2 of the Sherman Act condemns firms who “monopolize,” “attempt to monopolize,” or “combine or conspire” to monopolize—all without explanation. Section 2 is the antitrust law’s only provision that reaches entirely unilateral conduct, although it has often been used to reach collaborative conduct as well. In general, § 2 requires greater amounts of individually held market power than do the other antitrust statutes, but it is less categorical about conduct. With one exception, however, the statute reads so broadly that criticisms of the nature that it is outdated cannot be based on faithful readings of the text.

The one …

Direct Dan Indirect Effect: Determinan Upah Minimum Kabupaten/Kota Di Jawa Barat, Alphin Pratama Husada, Risni Julaeni Yuhan

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

This study aims to analyze the determinants of the regional minimum wage (UMK) directly and indirectly in West Java in year 2010–2019. The author found that the minimum wage model that considers spatial dependence produces two different interpretations, namely direct and indirect impacts. The regression model used in this study is the spatial durbin model (SDM). In the spatial model, partial reduction is carried out to get direct and indirect effects. The results of the study show that there are direct and indirect influences originating from the MSE variables, Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP), Human Development Index (HDI) and the …

Digital Market Concentration: An Institutional And Social Cost Analysis, Jack Shane

Honors Projects

In this thesis, I develop an analysis of the industry concentration seen in digital markets today. I begin with a description and argument for the use of institutional economics. This framework allows for the integration of an interdisciplinary approach to economics. My analysis details the socioeconomic and political impacts, as well as the underlying market dynamics that have pushed digital markets towards concentration. I offer novel explanations for the lack of firm behavior that should theoretically increase profit, the existence of barriers to competition, and consumer behavior that focus on the role of social institutions. I also detail many of …

A Miser’S Rule Of Reason: The Supreme Court And Antitrust Limits On Student Athlete Compensation, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

The unanimous Supreme Court decision in NCAA v. Alston is its most important probe of antitrust’s rule of reason in decades. The decision implicates several issues, including the role of antitrust in labor markets, how antitrust applies to institutions that have an educational mission as well as involvement in a large commercial enterprise, and how much leeway district courts should have in creating decrees that contemplate ongoing administration.

The Court accepted what has come to be the accepted framework: the plaintiff must make out a prima facie case of competitive harm. Then the burden shifts to the defendant to produce …

Aacsb Accreditation And Student Demand, Bryan Mccannon, Katherine Starr, Marisa Cameron

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

We ask whether AACSB accreditation has a meaningful impact on university admissions. To do this, we explore 16 U.S. institutions which first achieved this certification recently. We, first, document a modest, but nonzero, impact on university-wide undergraduate applications, without any changes in first-year enrollment, price, or quality of the incoming student body. Restricting attention to business schools, while initial evidence suggests that the accreditation is associated with a decrease in enrollments, we show that this is complicated by non-parallel trends prior to accreditation. Compared to their comparison institutions, universities who seek out accreditation were experiencing flatter business enrollments. Correcting for …

Blockchain Networks As Knowledge Commons, Ilia Murtazashvili, Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, Martin B. H. Weiss, Michael J. Madison

Articles

Researchers interested in blockchains are increasingly attuned to questions of governance, including how blockchains relate to government, the ways blockchains are governed, and ways blockchains can improve prospects for successful self-governance. Our paper joins this research by exploring the implications of the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework to analyze governance of blockchains. Our novel contributions are making the case that blockchain networks represent knowledge commons governance, in the sense that they rely on collectively-managed technologies to pool and manage distributed information, illustrating the usefulness and novelty of the GCK methodology with an empirical case study of the evolution of Bitcoin, …

The Partition Of Production Between Households And Markets, Christopher Colburn, Haiwen Zhou

Economics Faculty Publications

The process of industrialization was accompanied by the switch from household production to firm production. The industrialization process was also a process of population growth, the appearance of general-purpose technologies, and the expansion of international trade. This paper studies the partition of production between households and firms in an analytically tractable general equilibrium model with a continuum of goods. We show that population growth, development of general-purpose technologies, and the opening of international trade increase the percentage of goods produced by firms. However, with the appearance of a technology biased toward home production, the percentage of goods produced by households …

Antitrust Error Costs, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

The idea that consideration of error costs should inform judgments about actions with uncertain consequences is well established. When we act on imperfect information, we consider not only the probability of an event, but also the expected costs of making an error. In 1984 Frank Easterbrook used this idea to rationalize an anti-enforcement bias in antitrust, reasoning that markets are likely to correct monopoly in a relatively short time while judicial errors are likely to persist. As a result, false positives (recognizing a problem when there is none) are more costly than false negatives. While the problem of error cost …

The U.S. Coal Industry: Market Structure & Implications, Sara Elizabeth Guffey

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The U.S. coal mining industry was once a booming industry which created and defined communities, particularly in Appalachia. The industry has, however, transformed significantly in the last couple of decades with the passage of environmental policies, with competition from the Shale Revolution, from changes in company ownership, and from mine safety regulation. Overall, the coal industry during this time has experienced a massive decline in production and employment. This dissertation is composed of three papers that investigate these mechanisms and their role in understanding market structure, coal transactions and prices, and mine safety outcomes. Motivated by the shutdowns of U.S. …