June 2012

Frontiers in Dynamic Pricing: Spot Advertising Auctions

Lynne Kiesling According to this Ars Technica story (and a linked Bloomberg article), Facebook is going to offer a new advertising model to its potential advertisers: a spot auction for real-time ads based on changes in current events or time-sensitive things like sporting event results. The service, called Facebook Exchange, will use partnerships with other …

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Poor Market Design Causing High Prices in Diablo Iii Auction House?

Michael Giberson  I don’t play Diablo III, but I do follow price gouging discussions online, which led me to this post on the Diablo III discussion forum: “Auction House and Price Gouging.” The initial complaint comes from a player trying to equip a new character through purchases in the Auction House, an in-game player-to-player trading mechanism, and …

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Not Your Grandfather’s Dysfunctional Energy Policy

Michael Giberson In the Christian Science Monitor, Robert Rapier wishes for a stable energy policy. It is an attractive idea. After all, policy uncertainty plays havoc with the ability of investors, managers, workers and consumers to coordinate plans in ways that usually work to make us all better off. He provides three examples–the production tax credit …

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Adam Smith Opposes “Shock Therapy” for Developing and Transitioning Economies

Michael Giberson “Get the prices right!” was the rallying cry of some economists in the aftermath of the break up of the Soviet Union. Don’t plan the transition, stop planning and let markets sort it out. Similar advice goes out to developing economies around the world. Don’t ease your way to liberalization, throw open the …

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Horwitz: Do Free Markets Require “Rational” Actors?

Lynne Kiesling Steve Horwitz has a great Freeman column today, inspired by reading Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational. Steve starts by pointing out that the definition of “rational” is not uniform, which matters a great deal because of the theoretical, empirical, and policy implications one draws from the definition used: People act “irrationally,” in the sense …

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Price Gouging in Literature: Little House on the Prairie’s “The Long Winter”

Michael Giberson Jeremy’s Blog at LDSLiberty.org comments on a price gouging episode in The Long Winter, the sixth book in the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Due to a long winter of snow and storms, the people in the town of De Smet are at the point of starving.  Suddenly …

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Competitive Power Market in Texas Faces Supply Concerns. Now What?

Michael Giberson The question troubling some folks in Texas’s competitive power market: Will Texas consumers want to consume more electric power than suppliers are able to supply? A resource adequacy review by ERCOT, the power system and market operator for most of the state, suggests that consumer demand may outstrip resources available as early as 2014. …

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