Lynne Kiesling Felix Salmon has a very nice microeconomic analysis of a proposal for New York to lease out its parking meters and facilities to a concessionaire, with a contingent contract based on the lessee’s implementation of dynamic pricing. A sample of what makes the analysis good: The masters of variable pricing, of course, are …
More Frontiers in Dynamic Pricing: New York Parking Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Think consciously about a decision you contemplated recently. As you were weighing your options, how much did you really know that you could bring to bear, definitively, on your decision? Was the outcome pre-determined, or was it unknown to you? For most of the decision-making situations we confront regularly, we don’t have full …
Experimentation, Jim Manzi, and Regulation/deregulation Read More »
Lynne Kiesling [NOTE: The following is an economist’s musings about philosophy, so if my philosopher friends can flesh out my argument and identify errors I’d be grateful. Also, this post is meant for you if you are interested in electricity regulation, so don’t just mark it as read because it’s philosophy ;-)! –LK] Although I …
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 …
Frontiers in Dynamic Pricing: Spot Advertising Auctions Read More »
Lynne Kiesling It’s no secret that Elinor Ostrom has always been a role model for me; the KP archives contain many references to her work and accomplishments from both of us, and much of my thinking in my own work rests on ideas and inspirations that I have drawn from her work. Lin passed away …
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 …
Poor Market Design Causing High Prices in Diablo Iii Auction House? Read More »
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 …
Adam Smith Opposes “Shock Therapy” for Developing and Transitioning Economies Read More »
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 …
Horwitz: Do Free Markets Require “Rational” Actors? Read More »
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 …
Price Gouging in Literature: Little House on the Prairie’s “The Long Winter” Read More »
Lynne Kiesling The ever-interesting Alexis Madrigal notes that Motorola and RIM called; they want to go back to 2004 and try again. Do they ever! Remember the first RAZR flip phone (in pink, even!) and the power image associated with being tethered to your Crackberry? And the profits for Motorola and RIM that accompanied them? …
Got Your Creative Destruction Right Here, and What a Gale of It Read More »
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