Michael Giberson Virginia Postrel says “Economics saves lives.” She referring to the New England Kidney Exchange, which is based on the economic systems design work of Al Roth at Harvard. (I would call it “market design work,” but using the “market” word might suggest the institution runs afoul of current laws against bribing people to …
Michael Giberson Back in December I wrote: I think quality, rather than customer goodwill and trust, will be the truly sustainable approach to providing a premium to small [coffee] producers in less-developed nations. To that end, programs like the Cup of Excellence are the better approach. It provides a rigorous quality scoring system followed by …
Michael Giberson Last week four Midwestern state attorneys general released a report on natural gas markets that concluded that market fundamentals could not alone explain high natural gas prices. A press release says: In their discussions of market dynamics, the Attorneys General said they found greatly divergent opinions and contradictory explanations for the recent roller-coaster …
FERC Staff Blasts Gas Market Report Issued by Midwest States Attorneys General Read More »
Michael Giberson The 65-team field selections had barely finished being announced on Sunday when CBS commentators began complaining about the selections and the seedings. One ESPN story on the subject is online here. Sports commentators are paid for maintaining audience, and controversy probably keeps an audience tuned in, but what does the market data say …
Ticket Reserve Market Tells Us Who Was Dissed by the Selection Committee Read More »
Michael Giberson The 65 teams for the NCAA men?s basketball tournament have been selected. Maybe your team has been seeded well and suddenly you think there is a chance they will make it through to the Regional finals (aka the ?Sweet 16?). Can you still get tickets? Sure, from some casual searching, I found online …
NCAA Basketball Ticket Options at Ticket Reserve Read More »
Lynne Kiesling There is a fascinating article in today’s Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) about a lawsuit that Coca-Cola bottlers have brought against Coca-Cola. The issue is Wal-Mart’s request to the company for direct shipment of Powerade to Wal-Mart warehouses. One large bottler, Coca-Cola Enterprises (which is responsible for 77% of C-C sales in the …
Lynne Kiesling Yes, incentives do matter … Brian Micklethwait finds that how he pays for Internet access changes how he uses it. In transition between service providers, he finds himself with a slow, pay-for-time connection, which has changed how he uses the Internet: Suddenly, I find myself back in the world of “the news”, in …
Incentives Matter: How to Price Internet Service Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Today is a dynamism day here at KP, whether it’s marketing or technology or business models. Business Week has an interview with Frank Moss, the new head of MIT’s MediaLab. He points out the importance of several things that I think are crucial for dynamic innovation: entrepreneurship, new models of collaboration and invention, …
Lynne Kiesling I knew Grant McCracken would pick up on and analyze the new Australian travel marketing campaign. If you haven’t seen it, here it is. What’s good about the line “So where the bloody hell are you?” is that it captures what I take to be a peculiarly national endowment. Australians have so perfected …
Lynne Kiesling Will Wilkinson recently had a post on the creation of new knowledge by location. Very interesting (even with the caveat about interpreting data mentioned in the comments). I think this is one of the most important questions of political economy we have: what institutions are successful at creating an environment conducive to the …
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