Industrial Organization Commons^™

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Fair Play: Notes On The Algorithmic Soccer Referee, Michael J. Madison

Articles

The soccer referee stands in for a judge. Soccer’s Video Assistant Referee (“VAR”) system stands in for algorithms that augment human deciders. Fair play stands in for justice. They are combined and set in a polycentric system of governance, with implications for designing, administering, and assessing human-machine combinations.

Network Effects In Action, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

This Chapter begins by examining and exploring the theoretical and empirical limits of the possible bases of network effects, paying particular attention to the most commonly cited framework known as Metcalfe’s Law. It continues by exploring the concept of network externalities, defined as the positive external consumption benefits that the decision to join a network creates for the other members of the network, which is more ambiguous than commonly realized. It then reviews the structural factors needed for models based on network effects to have anticompetitive effects and identifies other factors that can dissipate those effects. Finally, it identifies alternative …

Cloud Computing, Contractibility, And Network Architecture, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

The emergence of the cloud is heightening the demands on the network in terms of bandwidth, ubiquity, reliability, latency, and route control. Unfortunately, the current architecture was not designed to offer full support for all of these services or to permit money to flow through it. Instead of modifying or adding specific services, the architecture could redesigned to make Internet services contractible by making the relevant information associated with these services both observable and verifiable. Indeed, several on-going research programs are exploring such strategies, including the NSF’s NEBULA, eXpressive Internet Architecture (XIA), ChoiceNet, and the IEEE’s Intercloud projects.

Residential And Business Broadband Prices Part 1: An Empirical Analysis Of Metering And Other Price Determinants, Scott J. Wallsten, James Riso

Scott J. Wallsten

For this project, we assemble a new dataset consisting of more than 25,000 residential and business broadband plans from all OECD countries from 2007–2009. We explore three issues: the relationship between plan components—such as metering—and consumer prices, price changes over time, and how broadband prices vary across countries.

This paper, part 1 of the project, discusses pricing for broadband plans and, specifically, the relationship between plan components and pricing. We find that residential broadband plans with data caps—plans in which consumers pay a base price for a set amount of data—cost less than plans with unlimited data, other things being …

Greek Patent Protection System And The Impacts Of Information Technology Industry, Emmanouil Alexander Zografakis Ez

Emmanouil Alexander Zografakis EZ

Our era can be characterized as the era of knowledge proliferation and bountifulness. That has marked our era as the era following the pace of the Information Society Development. Information Society has also brought about a remarkable IT development pace over countries. Thereby, it is greatly important all that raw knowledge to become mind figments, ideas and even inventions and innovations. It is also essential to highlight that such a beneficial process will ensure the continuity of the IT development. The only way to achieve that goal is to find a way to secure all that aforementioned knowledge which is …

Two Cheers For The Fcc's Mobility Fund Reverse Auction, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

The United States held its first competitive bidding, or “reverse auction,” for universal service subsidies in September 2012. While it is far too early to investigate whether this national auction generated improvements in mobile voice and broadband service in underserved areas, it is not too soon to evaluate the auction itself. This paper investigates the outcome of the Mobility Fund Phase 1 Auction (Auction 901) and considers what we could learn from it for universal service and for future planned reverse auctions, such as the upcoming incentive auction, which aims to reallocate spectrum from broadcasters to those who place a …

Comments On The Verizon-Spectrumco Deal, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

Secondary Markets: The Quiet Economic Value Creator, John Mayo, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

What Gets Measured Gets Done: Stop Focusing On Irrelevant Broadband Metrics, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

Concerns regarding the state of U.S. broadband arises from a combination of focusing on the wrong metrics, a misguided interpretation of consumer preferences, and a popular obsession with rankings. These misperceptions translate into misdirected, if well-intentioned, public policies that waste scarce resources and distract from real issues like a large income-based digital divide.

Testimony On The Role Of Government In Promoting R&D, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

How To Create A More Efficient Broadband Universal Service Program By Incorporating Demand And Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

The existing high-cost fund suffers from two inherent flaws: it does not incorporate how much consumers value the services being subsidized, and does not measure the incremental, rather than average, effects of the program. This paper proposes a way to incorporate those factors into the Connect America Fund—the proposed high-cost broadband support program—to enable it to operate more efficiently than the existing high-cost program ever could.

In particular, decisions about where to provide subsidies should be based on cost-effectiveness analyses that explicitly take into account not just the cost of providing service but also how much consumers would value the …

Secondary Spectrum Markets As Complements To Incentive Auctions, Scott J. Wallsten, John W. Mayo

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

Pricing Strategies In A Digital World, Laura Martin, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

The Universal Service Fund: What Do High-Cost Subsidies Subsidize?, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

The universal service program in the United States currently transfers about $7.5 billion per year from telephone subscribers to certain telephone companies. Those funds are intended to help achieve particular policy goals, such as subsidizing telephone service in rural areas and making phone service more affordable to low-income people. The bulk of the funds, about $4.5 billion per year, subsidizes firms operating in high-cost areas. A large literature documents the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of these subsidies, raising the question of where the money goes. This paper uses data submitted by about 1,400 recipients of high-cost subsidies from 1998 – 2008 …

The Future Of Digital Communications Research And Policy, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

Residential And Business Broadband Prices Part 2: International Comparisons, Scott J. Wallsten, James Riso

Scott J. Wallsten

For this project, we assemble a new dataset consisting of more than 25,000 residential and business broadband plans from all OECD countries from 2007–2009. We explore three issues: the relationship between plan components—such as metering—and consumer prices, price changes over time, and how broadband prices vary across countries.

This paper, part 2 of the project, studies prices and price changes over time in the United States and other OECD countries. We find that residential prices in the U.S. remained fairly stable overall in this time period for both standalone and triple play (voice, video, and data) plans, though prices for …

Residential And Business Broadband Prices: Data Appendix, Scott J. Wallsten, James Riso

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

An Economic Overview Of The Implications For Online Video Of The Proposed Comcast-Nbcu Transaction, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

Residential Broadband Competition In The United States, Scott J. Wallsten, Colleen Mallahan

Scott J. Wallsten

This paper uses a new FCC dataset on residential broadband subscribership and speeds at the census tract level combined with data from a number of additional sources to explore the state of broadband competition in the U.S. and test the effects of competition on speeds, penetration, and prices.

We find that the number of wireline providers in a census tract is positively correlated with the highest available broadband speeds, even when controlling for housing density, household income, state fixed effects, and endogenizing the number of providers. That is, we find that DSL, cable, and fiber speeds are each significantly higher …

Understanding International Comparisons: 2009 Update, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

Testimony On Reforming The Universal Service High Cost Fund, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

The Dtv Coupon Program: A Boon To Retailers, Not Consumers, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

Testimony For Fcc En Banc Hearing At Carnegie Mellon University On Broadband And The Digital Future, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

Understanding International Broadband Comparisons, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

Reverse Auctions And Universal Telecommunications Service: Lessons From Global Experience, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

The United States now spends around $7 billion on universal service programs—subsidies intended to ensure that the entire country has access to telecommunications services. Most of this money supports telecommunications service in “high cost” (primarily rural) areas, and the High Cost fund is growing quickly. In response to this growth, policymakers are considering using reverse auctions, or bids for the minimum subsidy, as a way to reduce expenditures. While the U.S. has not yet distributed funds for universal service programs using reverse auctions, the method has been used widely. First, reverse auctions are akin to standard government procurement procedures, which …

The Economics Of Pacific Bell V. Linkline Communications, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

Testimony On Broadband To Senate Committee On Small Business And Entrepreneurship, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

A Regulatory Play In Two Acts, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.

No More Baseball Giveaways, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

No abstract provided.