Economic Seminars

The FCC Economic Seminars program, managed by the Economic Analysis Division in OEA, features recent research advances in the economics of telecommunications, media and the internet. The Commission recognizes the importance of expanding its engagement with the research community, as staff members must address complex issues which require substantive expertise. Invited speakers are primarily economists but may also include other professionals with expertise related to economic issues of interest to FCC economists and engineers.

Lecture Videos

Location:	Seminars in the Fall 2021 program will be held virtually.
Time:	Seminars are typically scheduled for 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. on Tuesdays.
Attendance:	TBD
Contact:	Patrick.Sun@fcc.gov, Nicholas.Copeland@fcc.gov

Spring 2021

March 9 – Eyal Winter
On Stars and Galaxies: Exploiting Social Influence in Networks
March 23 – Arman Rezaee
The Impact of Mobile Phones: Experimental Evidence from the Random Assignment of New Cell Towers
April 6 – Christine Mulhern
Inequality in Household Adaptation to Schooling Shocks: Covid-Induced Online Learning Engagement in Real Time
April 20 – Jakub Tecza
The Role of Bidding Agreements in FCC Spectrum Auctions
May 4 – Ryan Hawthorne
Narrowing the ‘Digital Divide’: The Role of Complementarities between Fixed and Mobile Data in South Africa
May 18 – Pedro Ferreira
The Impact of Mobile Number Portability on Price and Consumer Welfare
June 1 – Christopher Avery
Digital Messaging to Improve College Enrollment and Success
June 15 – Elisa Mougin
TV in Times of Political Uncertainty: Evidence from the 2017 Presidential Election in Kenya
June 29 – Apoorv Gupta
Information, Technology Adoption and Productivity: The Role of Mobile Phones in Agriculture

Fall 2020

September 15 -- Lena Edlund
It's the Phones Stupid: Mobiles and Murder
September 29 -- Idris Adjerid
Consumer Consent and Firm Targeting after GDPR: The Case of a Large Telecom Provider
October 13 -- April Knill
Media Partisanship and Fundamental Corporate Decisions
October 27 -- Jeffrey Prince
Mobile Internet Usage and Usage Based Pricing
November 10 -- George Zuo
Wired and Hired: Employment Effects of Subsidized Broadband Internet for Low-Income Americans
November 24 -- Victor H. Orozco-Olvera
The Entertaining Way to Behavioral Change: Fighting HIV with MTV
December 8 -- Ana Aizcorbe
Getting Smart About Phones: New Price Indexes and the Allocation of Spending Between Devices and Services Plans in Personal Consumption Expenditures

Fall 2019

Sept 4 -- Jeremy Fox
Geographic Expansion Mergers and FCC Spectrum Policy: Estimating a Matching Game with Externalities
Oct 2 -- James Prieger
The Importance of Broadband and other Infrastructure for Entrepreneurship
Oct 16 -- Kyle Wilson
Local Competition, Multimarket Contact, and Product Quality: Evidence From Internet Service Provision
Oct 23 -- Guofu Tan
The Impact of Ad-Avoidance Technologies in the Market for Video Streaming
Oct 30 -- Jonathan Hersh
Cell Phone Coverage and Traffic Accidents: New Evidence Using Cell Phone Towers
Nov 13 -- Paul Scott
Competition and Investment in Mobile Telecommunications
Dec 4 -- Paul Atwell
The Reach of Radio: Ending Civil Conflict through Rebel Demobilization

Spring 2019

Apr 24 -- Charles Angelucci
Media Competition and News Diets
May 8 -- Nodir Adilov & Brendan Cunningham
Left for Dead: Anti-Competitive Behavior in Orbital Space
May 15 -- Andrey Simonov
What Drives Demand for Government-Controlled News in Russia?
May 22 -- Julie Mortimer
Demand for Advertising in the Television Industry
Jun 5 -- Brian McManus
Steering Incentives and Bundling Practices in the Telecommunications Industry

Fall 2018

Sept 5 -- Gloria Sheu and Charles Taragin, DOJ
Simulating Mergers in a Vertical Supply Chain with Bargaining
Sept 26 -- Filipe Campante, Johns Hopkins Univ.
Mobile Phones, Social Media, and the Behavior of Politicians: Evidence From Brazil
Oct 2 -- Lixin Ye, Ohio State Univ.
Optimal Mechanisms with Costly Information Acquisition
Oct 4 -- A. Zentner, Univ. of Texas, Dallas
Measuring E-Commerce Concentration Effects When Product Popularity is Channel-Specific
Oct 10 -- Ginger Zhe Jin, Univ. of Maryland
Artificial Intelligence and Consumer Privacy
Oct 24 -- Camilo García-Jimeno, Univ. of Pennsylvania
Women, Rails and Telegraphs: An Empirical Study of Information Diffusion and Collective Action
Nov 7 -- Shane Greenstein, Harvard Univ.
Evidence of Decreasing Internet Entropy: The Lack of Redundancy in DNS Resolution by Major Websites and Services
Nov 14 -- Meng Liu, Washington Univ. in St. Louis
Technology, Incentives, and Service Quality: the Case of Taxis and Uber
Nov 28 -- Joel Waldfogel, Univ. of Minnesota
The Future of Popular Culture, Platforms, Power, and Preferential Placement: Evidence from Spotify Playlists
Dec 12 -- Lesley Chiou, Occidental College
Internet Use, Competition, and Geographical Rescoping in Yellow Pages Advertising

Spring 2018

Mar 7 -- Bradley Larsen, Stanford Univ.
Dynamic Competition in the Era of Big Data
Mar 21 -- Daniel Bjorkegren, Brown Univ.
Scoping for Competition in Network Industries: Evidence from Mobile Telecom in Rwanda
Apr 4 -- Elena Krasnokutskaya, Johns Hopkins Univ.
The Role of Quality in Internet Service Markets
Apr 18 -- Oleksandr Shcherbakov, Bank of Canada
Welfare Analysis of Equilibria With and Without Early Termination Fees in the U.S. Wireless Industry
May 2 -- Jose Tudon Maldonado, Univ. of Chicago
Congestion vs Content Provision in Net Neutrality: The Case of Amazon's Twitch.tv
May 9 -- Thomas Hazlett, Clemson Univ.
The Political Spectrum
May 16 -- Filipe Campante, Harvard Univ.
Mobile Phones, Social Media, and the Behavior of Politicians: Evidence From Brazil
May 30 -- Tilsa Ore Monago, Stony Brook Univ.
The Effect of Switching Costs on Prices: An Application to the Peruvian Mobile Phone Market
June 27 -- Ananya Sen, MIT
Advertising Spending and Media Bias: Evidence from News Coverage of Car Safety Recalls

Fall 2017

Sept 20 -- Christoph Walsh, Boston Univ.
Liberalizing the Airwaves in Ghana: A Dynamic Structural Model of Radio Station Competition
Sept 27 -- Andrea Prat, Columbia Univ.
Where Do People Get Their News?
Oct 3 -- Alexander White, Tsinghua Univ.
The Attention Economy of Online Advertisements
Oct 13 -- Nicholas Economides, NY Univ.
Compatibility and Interoperability in Mobile Phone‐Based Banking Networks
Oct 25 -- Daniel Goetz, Univ. of Toronto
Competition and Dynamic Bargaining in the Broadband Industry
Nov 8 -- Soo Jin Kim, Michigan State Univ.
Privacy, Information Acquisition, and Market Competition
Nov 15 -- Chris Forman, Cornell Univ.
Battle of the Internet Channels: How Does Mobile and Fixed‐Line Quality Drive Internet Use?
Nov 29 -- Navdeep Sahni, Stanford Univ.
Does Advertising Serve as a Signal? Evidence from Field Experiments in Mobile Search
Dec 6 -- Ron Berman, Univ. of Pennsylvania
The Impact of Curation Algorithms on Social Network Content Quality and Structure

Spring 2017

Mar 8 -- Pinar Yildirim, Wharton
Social Media and Political Donations: New Technology and Incumbency Advantage in the United States
Mar 22 -- Jeff Prince, IU Bloomington
The Empirical Economics of Online Attention
Apr 5 -- Niklas Dürr, ZEW Mannheim
Does State Aid for Broadband Deployment in Rural Areas Close the Digital and Economic Divide?
Apr 19 -- Khai Chiong, USC
An Empirical Model of the Mobile Advertising Market
May 3 -- Jiawei Chen, UC Irvine
Reimbursing Consumers' Switching Costs in Network Industries
May 17 --Chris Hogendorn, Weslayan
Cybersecurity of US Residential ISP Customers: An Economic Analysis
May 31 -- Ken Flamm, UT Austin
Price vs. Quality Competition in U.S. Broadband
June 14 -- Ying Fan, Univ. of Michigan
Competition, Product Proliferation and Welfare: A Study of the U.S. Smartphone Market
June 28 -- Wen Wen, UT Austin
How Do Complementors Respond to the Threat of Platform Owner Entry? Evidence from the Mobile App Market

Fall 2016

Sept 7 – Jingting Fan, UMD
The Alibaba Effect: Spatial Consumption Inequality and the Welfare Gains from E-Commerce
Sept 21 – Jorg Spenkuch, Northwestern Univ.
Political Advertising and Election Outcomes
Oct 5 – Catherine Tucker, MIT
Role of Early Adopters in Diffusion of Bitcoin Technology
Oct 19 – Sarthak Grover, Princeton Univ.
A Case Study of Traffic Demand Response to Broadband-Plan Upgrades
Nov 2 – Stefan Weiergraeber, Indiana Univ., Bloomington
Network Effects and Switching Costs in the US Wireless Industry
Nov 16 – Christian Helmers, Santa Clara Univ.
Attention and Saliency on the Internet: Evidence from an Online Recommendation System
Nov 30 – Joel Waldfogel, Univ. of Minnesota
Will Ad Blocking Break the Internet?
Dec 7 – Jonathan Williams, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
The Tragedy of the Last Mile: Congestion Externalities in Broadband Networks
Dec 9 – Joan Calzada, Univ. of Barcelona
What Do News Aggregators Do?
Dec 14 – Byung-Cheol Kim, Georgia Institute of Technology
Net Neutrality, Network Capacity and Innovation at the Edges

Spring 2016

March 2 - Babur De los Santos, Clemson
What's in a Name? Measuring Prominence, and Its Impact on Organic Traffic from Search Engines
March 16 - Ricard Gil, JHU
Evidence from the Spanish Local TV Industry
March 30 - Simon Anderson, UVA
Media See-saws: Winners and Losers on Media Platforms
April 13 - Lisa George, Hunter College/CUNY
The News Hour: Welfare Estimation in the Market for Local TV News
April 27 - Gregory Martin, Emory
Bias in Cable News: Real Effects and Polarization
May 11 - Oleksandr Shcherbakov, Washington University, St. Louis
The Welfare Effects of Endogenous Quality Choice in Cable Television Markets
May 25 - Michael Sinkinson, Wharton
Pricing and Entry Incentives with Exclusive Contracts: Evidence from Smartphones
June 1 - Andrew Sweeting, UMD
Dynamic Games with Asymmetric Information: Implications for Mergers.
June 15 - Andre Boik, UC Davis
The Economics of Universal Service: An Analysis of Entry Subsidies for High Speed Broadband

2015

Aug 19 - Alex Yankelevich, FCC
Mobile Wireless Industry Joint Ventures
June 24 - Tilman Wolf, Univ. of Mass.
Future Internet Architecture
May 5 - Stuart Cunningham, Univ. of Queensland
Media Economics
April 23 - Shoko Kiyohara, Georgetown Univ.
Internet Campaigning in Taiwan and Japan
Feb 3 - Robert Pepper, Cisco
Mobile Usage Forecast

2014

Nov 4 - Gustavo Torrens, Indiana Univ.
Optimal Regulation of Media Industry
Oct 21 - Andrea Prat, Columbia Univ.
Media Power
Sept 30 - Frank Barnes, UC-Boulder
Health Effects of Weak Magnetic Fields
Sept 23 - Olga Ukhaneva, Georgetown Univ.
Universal Service in a Wireless World
Aug 19 - Aleks Yankelevich, FCC
Competitive Effects of Production Joint Ventures
July 23 - Bob Weller, FCC
FCC's Intelligence Role in WWII
June 17 - David Mills, UVA
Buyer-Induced Exclusive Dealing
June 3 - John Mayo, Georgetown Univ.
Unfettered Spectrum Auctions
May 22 - David McAdams, Duke Univ.
Empirical Auctions of Many Objects
Mar 20 - Chris Hogendorn, Wesleyan Univ.
Net Neutrality and Price Discrimination
Mar 6 - Paul Zimmerman, FTC, and Anthony Bush, FCC
Internet Pricing, Preference Externalities, and Economic Growth
Feb 5 - Bob Pepper & Doug Webster, Cisco
Forecast of Mobile Usage Demand
Jan 30 - Doug Sicker, BITAG
Real-Time Management of Internet Congestion
Jan 23 - Michael Mandel, PPI
Data, Trade, and Growth
Jan 15 - Norman Fekrat, Lemko
Consumerization of Mobility

2013

Nov 21 - Brett Frischmann, Cardozo School of Law
Demand for an Open Internet Infrastructure
Oct 23 - Lee Rainie, Pew Research
Online Anonymity
Sept 30 - Geoffrey Myers, OFCOM
4G Auction in the UK
Sept 4 - Constantine Dovrolis, Georgia Insti. of Tech.
Open Peering by Internet Transit Providers
July 9 - Tim Brennan, UMBC
Applying Market Definition to Market Dominance: Uses and Abuses
June 11 - Debra Aron, Navigant Economics
Effects of Price Regulation on Broadband Adoption
May 30 - Dave Taht, Techlibre
Why the Last Mile Is So Slow
May 21 - Hal Singer and Kevin Caves, Navigant Economics
Regional Sports Networks
May 14 - Maria Petrova, Princeton
Do Political Blogs Matter?
May 7 - Zhu Wang, Richmond Fed
Ad-Valorem Platform Fees and Efficient Price Discrimination
Mar 28 - Przemek Jeziorski, UC Berkeley
Impact of Radio Market Concentration on Incumbent Success in Local Elections
Mar 8 - Lisa George, Hunter College
Online Consumption of Local News
Feb 28 - Wayne Leighton, Navigant Economics
Economic Engine of Political Change

2012

Nov 6 - Arogyaswami Paulraj, Stanford
Scaling Wireless Capacity
Oct 23 - Roger Entner, Recon Analytics
Impact of Wireless Industry on U.S. Economy
Sept 26 - Harish Viswanathan, Bell Labs
Machine-to-Machine Communications
Sept 24 - Rob Albon, ACCC Australia
Australian Broadband Policy
Sept 20 - Bronwyn Howell, New Zealand ISCR
International Comparison of Broadband Policies
July 25 - Sateesh Addepalli, Cisco
New Pervasive IT Architecture for Internet of Things and Human Networks
July 11 - Robert Pepper, Cisco
Internet Trends
June 29 - Sam Crawford & Alex Salter, SamKnows
Broadband Performance Measurement Systems: Technical Perspective
May 24 - Andrew Newton, ARIN
Operating a Routing Public Key Infrastructure under American Law
May 14 - J. Liebenau, S. Elaluf-Calderwood, and P. Karrberg
London School of Economics
Effect of Internet Traffic Imbalances on European Telecom Operators
May 2 - Barbara Stark, AT&T
Implications of Large Scale Network Address Translation
Apr 19 - Parag Pruthi, NIKSUN
Cyber Security Defense: Challenges & State of the Art
Apr 2 & 3 - Scott Marcus, WIK, Germany
International View of Regulatory Best Practices
Mar 29 - Dale Hatfield, Univ. of Colorado, Denver
Role of the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group
Mar 22 - Matthew Osborne, BEA
Cellular Service Bill Shock
Mar 19 - Tavi Carare, FCC
Entry and Competition in Differentiated Product Markets
Mar 15 - Randy Bush, Internet Initiative Japan
Securing Internet Routing: RPKI and BGP Origin Validation
Mar 8 - Ron Bonica, Juniper Networks
Migration to IPv6
Feb 6 - Sumit Roy, Univ. of Washington
Spectrum Sensing in White Space Networking
Feb 2 - David Crocker, Brandenburg InternetWorking
Fighting Internet Abuse with Trust: Enhancing the Paradigm

2011

Nov 30 - Fernando Beltran, Univ. of Auckland and
Mark Bykowsky and Bill Sharkey, FCC
Managing Spectrum: Private Property vs. Common Pool Resource
Oct 27 - Ivan Png, National Univ. of Singapore
Opt-Out Theory: Evidence from the Do Not Call Registry
Oct 20 - Alejandro Zentner, Carnegie Mellon
Entry and Competition: Evidence from the Brazilian Movie Exhibition Industry
Oct 12 - Steven Tepper, Vanderbilt
Protest over Art and Culture in America
Oct 6 - Steven Wildman, Michigan State
News Media Coverage of City Governments in 2009
Sept 16 - Alan Gregerman, Venture Groups
Innovation for Accessible Communications
Aug 2 - Benjamin Hickey, Juniper Networks, and Greg Bathrick, PMC Sierra
Gigabit-Capable Passive Optical Networks
July 28 - Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard
Cloud Computing: Minds for Sale
July 25 - Simon Wilkie, USC
Impact of Local Market Structure on Range of Media Viewpoints
June 23 - Jessica Chou, Yuan Ze Univ.
Telecom, Internet, & Broadcast Regulation in Taiwan
June 15 - Will Irving, Telstra
Australia's National Broadband Network
June 2 - Suraj Shetty and Robert Pepper, Cisco
Cisco's Visual Networking Index: A Forecast of IP Traffic
May 31 - Mark Townsley, Cisco
IPv6 in Broadband Networks
May 12 - Andrew Woessner, Telogical
U.S. Broadband Pricing Trends
Apr 13 - Minha Park, KCC
Communications Policies in Korea And Net Neutrality
Mar 24 - Atsushi Ozu, RITE (Research Insti. of Telecom. and Econ.)
Nationwide Broadband in Japan
Mar 2 - Filip Perich, SSC
Rule-Based Spectrum Access Control Management
Feb 22 - Henry Sinnreich, Adobe Systems, and Alan Johnston, Washington Univ.
Session Initiation Protocol
Jan 25 - Ian Olgeirson, SNL Kagan
Cable Competition and the Over-the-Top-Threat
Jan 18 - Andrew Malis, David Sinicrope, and Robin Mersh, Broadband Forum
Multiprotocol Label Switching

2010

Dec 13 - Paul Rappoport, Temple Univ.
The Future of Television
Dec 6 - Joel Waldfogel, Univ. of Minnesota
Pop Internationalism: Has a Half Century of World Music Trade Displaced Local Culture?
Dec 2 - Dan Reed, Microsoft
Cloud Services and Natural User Interfaces
Sept 16 - David Bell, AOL Advisor
Advertising Industry Trends
July 21 - J. P. Singh, Georgetown Univ.
International Cultural Policies: Creating National and Global Norms in a Complex World
June 29 - Glen Weyl, Harvard Univ.
Pass-Through and Merger Analysis
June 18 - Tania Voon, Melbourne Law School
China's Telecom Service Market and the WTO
Apr 13 - Kenneth Wilbur, Duke Univ.
The Effects of Advertising and Product Placement on Television Audiences
Apr 9 - Oren Bar-Gill, NYU Law School
Mobile Misperceptions
Feb 25 - David Waterman, Indiana Univ.
Horizontal and Vertical Integration in Cable Industry: Implications for Proposed Open Internet Rules

2009

Dec 17 - Jon Peha, FCC, Chief Technologist
Peer-to-Peer Networks and Copyrighted Content: Technical and Policy Implications
Nov 19 - Phil Weiser, DOJ, Deputy Assistant Attorney General
Reflections on Telecom Competition
Nov 17 - Joe Farrell, FTC, Director, Bureau of Economics
Welfare Analytics of Aftermarkets: A Consumer Protection Approach to Net Neutrality
Oct 20 - Jay Hamilton, Duke Univ.
How Can Public Policies Sustain the Accountability Reporting by Media?
Oct 1 - Howard Shelanski, FTC, Deputy Director, Bureau of Economics
Antitrust and Regulation after Trinko, Credit Suisse, and LinkLine
Sept 24 - Irene Wu, FCC
From Iron Fist to Invisible Hand: The Uneven Path of Telecom Reform in China, Chapter 1
Sept 11 - Tim Wu, Columbia Univ.
Challenges Facing This FCC

Time and Location

New seminars are scheduled for 10:30 unless shown otherwise above. They take place at 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554.

How to Attend

Seminars are free and open to the public but prior arrangements must be made in order to pass through building security. For more information or to arrange attendance, contact Jonathan Levy (FCC Deputy Chief Economist) at (202) 418-2030 or send e-mail to jlevy@fcc.gov.

Other Local Economic Seminars

Federal Trade Commission -- Bureau of Economics

Bureau/Office:

Economics and Analytics