(For the short version of my research page please click here)

---

Overview

My research focuses on three areas in empirical Industrial Organization. The first analyzes public policy issues in the cable and satellite television industry, economic and econometric consequences of bundling and/or quality choice, or both. The second analyzes the economics of information, in particular how consumer learning and advertising influences demand, competition, and market performance. The last considers issues of dynamic competition.

Cable Television, Bundling, and Quality Choice

• "The Welfare Effects of Bundling in Multi-Channel Television Markets,'' (joint with Ali Yurukoglu), forthcoming, American Economic Review.
  • A comprehensive econometric model of demand, pricing, channel-distributor bargaining, and bundling in multichannel (i.e. cable and satellite) television markets. Incorporates both the programming and advertising markets and simulates of outcomes under an a la carte pricing regime. Finds consumers would be no better off on average under a la carte.

• " The Impact of the 1992 Cable Act on Household Demand and Welfare," RAND Journal of Economics, v31n3 (Autumn 2000), 422-449.
  • Builds a model of demand for cable services based on the networks offered on each service and evaluates the effects of the 1992 Cable Act.
• " Monopoly Quality Degradation and Regulation in Cable Television ," (with Matthew Shum), Journal of Law and Economics, v50n1 (February 2007), 181-209.
  • Our first endogenous quality paper. Estimates the degree of quality degradation in cable markets and the impact of local regulatory oversight on offered qualities.
• "Bundling, Product Choice, and Efficiency: Should Cable Television Networks be Offered A La Carte?" (with Joseph Cullen), Information Economics and Policy, v19n3-4 (October 2007), 379-404.
  • A simulation paper. Surveys the welfare effects of bundling both for a given number of products and allowing for bundling to impact the number of products offered. Calibrates preferences and costs to a "typical" cable system and measures the likely effects of "Full A La Carte" and "Theme Tiers". Finds consumers may benefit considerably from a la carte offering of cable networks.
    
• " The Discriminatory Incentives to Bundle in the Cable Television Industry , forthcoming, Quantitative Marketing and Economics.
  • Tests the reduced-form implications of the discriminatory theory of bundling.
    
• "Economics at the FCC: 2007-2008", (with Evan Kwerel and Jonathan Levy), forthcoming, Review of Industrial Organization.
  
  • Survey of economic issues of interest during my year as Chief Economist at the FCC. Part of a useful volume produced every year by the RIO that surveys issues of economic interest authored by the Chief Economists at the FCC, FTC, DOJ, and EU.
• " The Welfare Effects of Endogenous Quality Choice: The Case of Cable Television ," (with Matthew Shum), February 2006.
  • Our second endogenous quality paper. A more sophisticated economic and econometric model permits measuring the welfare consequences of monopoly quality choice.
    
• "Cable Regulation in the Satellite Era", September 2006
  • Survey chapter for NBER book on regulation. Comments welcome.
    
• "Television Station Ownership Structure and the Quantity and Quality of TV Programming," July 2007.
  • A research study on media ownership commissioned by the Federal Communications Commission. Great data.
    
• "Estimating Price Elasticities in Differentiated Product Demand Models with Endogenous Characteristics," (with Dan Ackerberg), March 2007.
• "Robust Instrumental Variables," (with Dan Ackerberg), March 2007.
  • Two related papers. The first is an econometric paper analyzing conditions under which one can recover own- and cross-price elasticities in differentiated product demand models in the presence of endogenous product characteristics. The second extends these ideas to more general settings.
  • Status: Drafts in progress.
    

Information, Learning, and Advertising

• " Uncertainty and Learning in Pharmaceutical Demand ," (with Matthew Shum), Econometrica, 73n4 (July 2005), 1135-1174.
  • Specifies and estimates a model of consumer learning for pharmaceutical drugs.
• "The Empirical Consequences of Advertising Content in the Hungarian Mobile Phone Market,'' (with Jozsef Molnar), March 2008.
  • A new project analyzing the impacts of advertising with differing content (e.g. price, characteristic, image) on economic outcomes in the mobile phone market.
  • Status: Preliminary report for Hungarian Competitino Authority finished in March 2008. Mostly descriptive.
    
• "The Impact of Ratings and Word-of-Mouth on DVD Rentals: An Analysis of the Netflix Data," (with Ivan Maryanchyk), February 2007.
  • A new project analyzing the Netflix data. Initial focus on the impact of user ratings and "word-of-mouth" on rental demand.
  • Status: Work in progress. Data is up and preliminary demand estimates in place.
    

Dynamic Competition

• "A Virtual Stakes Approach to Measuring Competition in Product Markets," (with R. Michael Black, Shihua Lu, and Hal White), mimeo, May 2004.
  • Virtual Stakes measure the extent to which observed pricing behavior in a market deviates from "competitive" (Bertrand-Nash) outcomes and relates these to factors that are evidence of or thought to influence collusive behavior.
  • Status: Preliminary draft available upon request. Empirical example in progress.
    
• "Storability, Competition, and Sales: Do Firms Cut Prices to Steal Demand from Rivals or Themselves?,'' (with James J. Anton), April 2005.
  • Tests the implications of Anton and Das Varma (2005) using supermarket scanner data.
  • Status: Data in place but needs to be cleaned. Work in progress.
    
• "A Dynamic Model of Quality Competition in Subscription Television Markets,'' (with Alex Shcherbakov), March 2007.
  • A dynamic model of quality competition between cable and satellite providers.
  • Status: 15-year panel dataset in place. Economic and econometric model in development.
    

Other Work

• " Recent Advances in Structural Econometric Modeling: Dynamics, Product Positioning, and Entry," (with J.-P. Dube, K. Sudhir, A. Ching, M. Draganska, J. Fox, W. Hartmann, G. Hitsch, B. Viard, M. Villas-Boas, and N. Vilcassim), Marketing Letters, v16n2 (July 2005).
  • A summary of a 2004 Invitational Choice Symposium session on structural econometric modeling.
• " Bidding Asymmetries in Multi-Unit Auctions: Implications of Bid Function Equilibria in the British Spot Market for Electricity ," (with Joseph Crespo and Helen Tauchen), forthcoming, International Journal of Industrial Organization ,
  • Builds a model of asymmetric bidding in multi-unit electricity auctions and tests the implications of the model in the England and Wales electricity market.
• "An Empirical Analysis of Manufacturer-Retailer Interaction: What Determines Wholesale Prices?" (with Zsolt Macskasi), May 2006.
  • Estimates wholesale prices for ice cream and relates them to measures of manufacturer and retailer bargaining power.
  • Status: First draft in progress. A recent set of slides is available here.