Industrial Organization Commons^™

Economic Impact Of Ethanol Biorefineries In The U.S. Midwest From 2001 To 2015: A Quasi-Experimental Approach, Scott W. Hall

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

The objective of this dissertation is to analyze the economic impact of newly operational ethanol biorefineries on rural counties in the U.S. Midwest region for the period 2001 to 2015 using a quasi-experimental approach. Rapid growth in the ethanol industry expanded the number of ethanol plants located in the U.S. Midwest from 54 in 2001 to 173 in 2015. Out of the counties with 119 new ethanol biorefineries, 97 counties met the general treatment criteria defined in this dissertation, but only 56 of those counties qualified for the rural treatment criteria. Counties with ethanol biorefineries that qualified for treatment were …

Three Essays In Industrial Organization, Yiyi Hu

Economics Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation includes two papers about issues in two-sided markets and one paper discussing hierarchical Stackelberg model.

Chapter 1 analyzes endogenous horizontal product differentiation in a two-sided market with two platforms based on a two-stage Hotelling model. When the two sides are both single-homing, the platforms will choose maximal product differentiation in the equilibrium. However, when one side is multi-homing, and the multi-homing side views the platforms indifferent, the platforms choose minimal product differentiation in the equilibrium.

Chapter 2 investigates horizontal mergers in a two-sided market between three horizontally differentiated platforms. This chapter provides a theoretical analysis of impacts on …

Investigating The Effect Crime Has On Uber And Yellow Taxi Pickups In Nyc, Kebing Li

Honors Theses

How to manage the relationship between Uber and the local taxi industry has been a long-lasting and hot topic for most of the major cities around the world. Whether Uber is stealing money from and undermining the local taxi drivers or it is beneficial for public transportation has no certain conclusions. In this paper, we focus on the city of New York, where both Uber and traditional Yellow Taxi play important roles in public transportation and city culture in general, and we are trying to investigate the factors that are going to affect Uber and Yellow Taxi pickups in New …

The Impacts Of Supra-Regional Multi-Resort Season Passes: A Hedonic Pricing Model Of Single-Day Lift Tickets For Us Ski Areas, Sijia Lai

CMC Senior Theses

Numerous media analyses claim that supra-regional multi-resort season passes (mega passes) are negatively impacting skiing, snowboarding, and winter-sport communities. In particular, media claims that ski areas on these season passes are charging higher single-day lift ticket prices to nudge people to buy their season pass products. To test this claim, I use a hedonic pricing model to estimate the impact of season passes on adult single-day lift ticket prices. By applying OLS regressions to a dataset of 302 US ski areas for the winter of 2018-19, I find that the ski areas on the leading season passes (Ikon and Epic …

Essays On Price Discrimination And Demand Learning, Benjamin E. Wallace

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation consists of three essays examining how and why firms set prices in markets. In particular, this dissertation shows how firms may utilize nonlinear pricing to price discriminate, how firms may experiment with the prices they set to learn about the demand function in the market they serve in later periods and the effects of these pricing strategies on consumer welfare.

In Essay 1, I show how firms in the milk market use nonlinear price schedules -- quantity discounts -- to price discriminate and increase profits. I find that firms have a greater ability to price discriminate on their …

Price Discrimination On Complementary Goods: Evidence From The Men's Shaving Razor Market, Zheng Yang

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation analyzes the men's razor market to examine whether a monopolist can implement price discrimination for the complementary goods. I estimate a demand system for razors using the random coefficient logit model with market level sales data from the Nielsen Store Scanner dataset and individual demographic data from the March CPS. The estimated parameters are used to construct price-cost markups. By comparing the markups of different products, I find evidence that Gillette uses a two-part tariff strategy. This conclusion can be generalized as that of a monopolist setting the prices of tie-in products consistent with a two-part tariff.

Competition, Markups, And Gains From Trade: A Quantitative Analysis Of China Between 1995 And 2004, Wen-Tai Hsu, Yi Lu, Guiying Laura Wu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper provides a quantitative analysis of gains from trade in a model with head-to-head competition using Chinese firm-level data from Economic Censuses in 1995 and 2004. We find a significant reduction in trade cost during this period, and total gains from such improved openness during this period is 7:1%. The gains are decomposed into a Ricardian component and two pro-competitive ones. The procompetitive effects account for 20% of the total gains. Moreover, the total gains from trade are 13 31% larger than what would result from the formula provided by ACR (Arkolakis, Costinot, and Rodríguez-Clare 2012), which nests a …

Estimating Switching Costs With Market Share Data: An Application To Medicare Part D, Jung Won Yeo, Daniel P. Miller

Research Collection School Of Economics

Choice inertia and switching frictions are well-documented features of the demand for health insurance. In this paper, we estimate switching costs in the Medicare Part D market with aggregate market share data using standard discrete choice models for differentiated products. We consider various modelling assumptions: myopic and forward-looking consumers, and with and without random coefficients. Both myopic and forward-looking consumer models with no random coefficients yield switching cost estimates that closely match the actual average switching frequency, with implied dollar-valued switching costs of $1600 to $2000. We find the inclusion of random coefficients to the myopic consumer model results in …

Does Foreign Direct Investment Lead To Industrial Agglomeration?, Wen-Tai Hsu, Yi Lu, Xuan Luo, Lianming Zhu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on industrial agglomeration. Using the differential effects of FDI deregulation in 2002 in China on different industries, we find that FDI actually affects industrial agglomeration negatively. This result is somewhat counter-intuitive, as the conventional wisdom tends to suggest that FDI attracts domestic firms to cluster for various agglomeration benefits, in particular technology spillovers. To reconcile our empirical findings and the conventional wisdom, we develop a theory of FDI and agglomeration based on two counter-veiling forces. Technology diffusion from FDI attracts domestic firms to cluster, but fiercer competition drives firms away. …

Essays On The Market Structure Of The U.S. Health Care System, Ayse S. Diebel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the welfare implications of vertical restraints in the U.S. health care market. I focus on two phenomena that influence vertical relationships between hospitals and insurers: vertical integration and vertical bundling. Both of these practices have potential efficiency-inducing and anti-competitive effects from a theoretical standpoint, making welfare implications ambiguous. I analyze their impact on welfare in an empirical setting. This task requires structurally modeling the market by using data on hospitals, insurers, and consumers, and simulating counterfactual worlds free of vertical restraints.

I construct my dataset by combining data from multiple sources. Hospital characteristics come from the American …

Determination Of The Ordering For Dry Bulk Shipping Vessels, Tianyi Bao

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Coal Production In West Virginia, Brian Lego, John Deskins

Bureau of Business & Economic Research

No abstract provided.

Unconventional Natural Gas Industry Value Chain And Representative Companies, Ednilson Bernardes

Bureau of Business & Economic Research

This report defines a framework for the unconventional natural gas value chain and identifies representative companies in each stage, as per definition of the value chain adopted for the study. The main focus of the report is on major companies in the up and midstream stages of the value chain. However, the report presents major companies in stages further downstream covered by the study. The reason for the focus on up and midstream stages is two‐fold. First, given the current level of development of the unconventional natural gas value chain in the state, those are the stages where most opportunities …

The Economic Impact Of Olympic Games: Effects Of Host Country Announcements On Stock Market Returns, Bryan Engelhardt, Victor Matheson, Alex Yen, Max Chisholm

Economics Department Working Papers

Roughly seven years before an Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) accepts bids from countries to host an Olympics. Subsequently, the IOC determines and announces to the world who has won (and lost) the right to host. Contrary to prior evidence, we find the announcements do not affect the bidding countries’ stock markets. We complement prior studies by including additional, more recent, years of announcements, by investigating whether there are effects prior to the announcement, and by testing for an effect both parametrically and non-parametrically.

Building A Bridge Between Philanthropy And Profit: The History, Economics, And Politics Of Environmental Impact In A Commerce Society, Yekaterina Goncharova

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper examines our consumerist society through past and present data, business practice, supply chain, economics, and its impact on human and environmental well-being. Upon examination, the thesis aims to suggest change through social indicators and policy. It answers numerous questions surrounding both the problems and solutions associated with environmental policy. These include: the question as to what exactly is social and environmental impact investing? What are current changes impacting humanity’s ecological footprint? Why does society need to make changes? Most importantly, it assesses how we can change? Chapter 1 explores the past and what led to an increase of …

When Does Limited Commitment Matter In A Production Economy?, Kyoung Jin Choi, Jungho Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate the conditions under which the first-best allocation without commitment is sustainable in a production economy. While it is widely known in the literature that allowing capital accumulation creates a distortion, we find that it can help to sustain the first-best allocation. We also find that for a certain set of endowment economiesin which the efficient allocation is not sustainable, the efficient allocation becomes sustainable once we introduce a production technology with very small returns to scale orany returns to scale higher than that of the minimum value. In some cases, gains fromefficient resource allocation between agents can be …

Resource Scarcity, Effort, And Performance In Physically Demanding Jobs: An Evolutionary Explanation, Marko Pitesa, Stefan Thau

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Based on evolutionary theory, we predicted that cues of resource scarcity in the environment (e.g., news of droughts or food shortages) lead people to reduce their effort and performance in physically demanding work. We tested this prediction in a 2-wave field survey among employees and replicated it experimentally in the lab. In Study 1, employees who perceived resources in the environment to be scarce reported exerting less effort when their jobs involved much (but not little) physical work. In Study 2, participants who read that resources in the environment were scarce performed worse on a task demanding more (carrying books) …

Research Note: Investor Perceptions Of Comparable-To-Industry Versus Higher-Than-Industry Pay Ratio Disclosures, Khim Kelly, Jean Lin Seow

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The usefulness of the CEO-to-employee pay ratio disclosure to investors is subject to significant debate. Our experiment examines participant responses to higher-than-industry and comparable-to-industry pay ratio disclosures in a company. A prior experiment by Kelly and Seow (2016) (hereafter KS) found that incrementally disclosing a higher-than-industry pay ratio on top of higher-than-industry CEO pay had indirect negative effects on the company’s perceived investment potential, via negative perceptions about the fairness of the CEO pay and workplace climate. We find that the negative indirect effects of pay ratio disclosures on perceived investment potential in KS are replicable in our study, and …

Understanding The Decline In Manufacturing Employment, Susan N. Houseman

Presentations

No abstract provided.

In Good Company: In The Future, Every Business Might Be Social, Christian Petroske

Social Space

It sounds like a riddle: why would Coca Cola, one of the biggest soft drinks companies in the world, be investing in a cause to empower fi ve million female entrepreneurs globally by 2020? It’s true:1 the Coca Cola Company’s initiative, called 5by20, is a forerunning example of a trend sweeping the corporate world. This trend is known by many names, the foremost of which are “shared value”, “inclusive business” or “sustainable business”. Their defi nitions can seem murky at fi rst, but these terms share a common thread. They sit at the intersection of economy and society, one that …