Industrial Organization Commons^™

Essays On Healthcare Regulation And Industrial Regulation, Vitor C. Melo

All Dissertations

The first chapter explores differences in incentives and consequent behavior between for-profit and not-for-profit firms. I investigate a terrible choice nursing homes faced during the pandemic: isolating residents prevents deaths from COVID-19, but increases non-COVID deaths by aggravating mental illnesses such as dementia. I explore how ownership structure led to differences in isolation measures taken and in resultant health outcomes. I model decisions regarding isolation measures as a trade-off between profits and satisfying staff's demands, with not-for-profit managers more constrained in how they consume profits. The model predicts that not-for-profit facilities will have more restrictive isolation measures and, consequently, lower …

Move Fast And Get Sued: Uber's Entry Strategy And The Role Of City Regulation, Leonora Willett

CMC Senior Theses

This paper investigates the impact of Uber's entry into U.S. cities on federal court case filings, particularly focusing on how this disruptive platform influenced litigation patterns and regulatory responses. My analysis seeks to understand whether Uber’s entry into cities significantly affected the frequency and types of legal cases filed, including personal injury, contract disputes, and labor claims. Using an event study model and federal court data from the Federal Judicial Center spanning 2009 to 2023, my analysis evaluates changes in case filings before and after Uber's entry. Additionally, I analyze the impact of city-level regulations in five major cities on …

Essays In Industrial Organization And Regulation, Micah D. Thomas

All Dissertations

This dissertation is comprised of two essays; in the first, I develop a model to show that when there is a sufficiently large segment of uninformed consumers and an existing norm regarding the advertising of bundled good prices that price obfuscation through base good advertisements can be both: (1) profit maximizing, and (2) result in an equilibrium where only some firms obfuscate. I provide the first empirical evidence of this setting by estimating the increase in prices charged by retail gasoline stations, finding a statistically and economically significant obfuscating premium of 5-7 cents per gallon. I also provide evidence of …

Antisocial Innovation, Christopher Buccafusco, Samuel N. Weinstein

Georgia Law Review

Innovation is a form of civic religion in the United States. In the popular imagination, innovators are heroic figures. Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, and (for a while) Elizabeth Holmes were lauded for their vision and drive and seen to embody the American spirit of invention and improvement. For their part, politicians rarely miss a chance to trumpet their vision for boosting innovative activity. Popular and political culture alike treat innovation as an unalloyed good. And the law is deeply committed to fostering innovation, spending billions of dollars a year to make sure society has enough of it. But this sunny …

Public Interests And Economic Regulation Of Gambling, Rein Halbersma, Joost Poort

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

In the Netherlands, the Betting and Gaming Act from 1964 largely determines the current structure of gambling markets. The policy was to channel consumers to a limited number of licensed operators. This led to state-owned monopolies for lotteries, sports betting and casinos, a private monopoly for horse race betting, a limited number of privately owned charity lotteries, and a large number of private slot machines operators.

Pending legislation proposes an online market without a limit on the number of operators. Furthermore, state ownership will be phased out, and introduced legislation to privatizing and expanding the number of casinos. The current …

Advertising Competition In Retail Markets, Kyle Bagwell, Gea Myoung Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider non-price advertising by retail firms that are privately informed as to their respective production costs. We construct an advertising equilibrium, in which informed consumers use an advertising search rule whereby they buy from the highest-advertising firm. Consumers are rational in using the advertising search rule, since the lowest-cost firm advertises the most and also selects the lowest price. Even though the advertising equilibrium facilitates productive efficiency, we establish conditions under which firms enjoy higher expected profit when advertising is banned. Consumer welfare falls in this case, however. Under free entry, social surplus is higher when advertising is allowed. …

Advertising Competition In Retail Markets, Kyle Bagwell, Gea M. Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider non-price advertising by retail firms that are privately informed as to their respective production costs. We construct an advertising equilibrium, in which informed consumers use an advertising search rule whereby they buy from the highest-advertising firm. Consumers are rational in using the advertising search rule, since the lowest-cost firm advertises the most and also selects the lowest price. Even though the advertising equilibrium facilitates productive effi ciency, we establish conditions under which firms enjoy higher expected profit when advertising is banned. Consumer welfare falls in this case, however. Under free entry, social surplus is higher when advertising is …