Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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Item ESSAYS ON DIGITAL ECONOMICS(2024) Kim, Sueyoul; Jin, Ginger Z; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation studies economic questions in the digital environment. Specifically, it examines whether the design of a seller reward program on a livestreaming platform is optimal from the platform's revenue perspective, and how consumers' privacy concerns affect their behavior. In the first chapter, I present an empirical framework for assessing the impact of seller rewards programs on platform revenue. The context is a Korean livestreaming platform, where sellers (called streamers) broadcast content and receive tips from viewers to generate revenue. Platform revenue comes from commission charged on this revenue, and the reward is a permanent commission discount provided through performance-based monthly tournaments. I initially collect individual streamer-time level data, including efforts (measured by streaming hours), tipping revenue, and reward program acceptance. The collected data, along with anecdotal evidence, indicate that streamers exhibit heterogeneity in profitability, measured by tipping revenue per watch time. Furthermore, they tend to compete within specific broadcasting categories (e.g., within the Game category) to attract viewers. I then estimate a dynamic model to describe the effect of program design on streamers' behavior. The key trade-off for the livestreaming platform is that offering more commission discount rewards may increase the total tipping revenue by encouraging streamers---especially more profitable ones---to stream more, but it results in the platform taking a substantially smaller share of the generated tipping revenue. Counterfactual simulations reveal that the last platform share effect quantitatively dominates. This suggests that reducing the reward program by providing the reward to a smaller number of streamers or decreasing the commission discount rate would raise platform revenue. Additionally, these simulations identify opportunities to raise platform revenue by reallocating approval slots more granularly, at different broadcasting category levels instead of the entire platform level. In the second chapter, I empirically study how consumers' privacy concerns affect their behavior. Using panel survey data from South Korea that followed 5,328 individuals for four years, I find that privacy concern has a significant negative effect on their Facebook and Twitter usage. I additionally find that such concern has heterogeneous effects on online shopping behavior, while cloud storage services remain unaffected. When privacy-related events such as the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal in 2018 increases privacy concern, it appears to harm not only Facebook but also other firms in the industry (e.g., Twitter). Because a private firm does not internalize such negative spillovers, the privacy protection level determined in a free market could be different from the social optimum.Item Essays in Industrial Organization(2022) Erturk, Nebahat Ferda; Sweeting, Andrew; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation broadly focuses on two topics in spatial competition. The first two chapters examine the role of regulation in growing shared micromobility market in Washington, DC. The third chapter looks at the fixed broadband market in Wisconsin, USA, and tries to offer insights into the observed spatial pattern of infrastructure upgrades by the incumbents in relation to the entry threat. In the first chapter, I build and estimate a model of shared micromobility market. The demand side of the market is represented by a standard random utility model. In order to estimate consumer preferences over price and non-price characteristics, I borrow a novel method that accounts for the observed zero market shares in the data. The supply side of the market is represented by a dynamic discrete choice incomplete information game. It is well-known that equilibrium calculation and estimation of these kinds of games are challenging. I employ a variety of concepts and methods that help accommodate those challenges to recover unobserved cost components for scooter operators. The second chapter builds on the model and estimation results from the first chapter. In this chapter, I conduct counterfactual exercises to analyze the welfare effects of regulation on Washington, DC micromobility market due to local authorities. I specifically focus on two scenarios. In the first scenario, I explore the effect of a policy that promotes equity in dockless vehicle use. I do so by implementing a subsidy to dockless vehicle use in low income neighborhoods. In the second scenario, I explore how welfare outcomes change when the local authority grants fewer permits of operation in the market. The third chapter aims to explore competitive practices in the fixed broadband industry in the United States. I find that in face of potential entry by fiber ISPs, incumbent cable modem ISPs strategically invest in upgrading their existing infrastructure. I do so by looking at two kinds of local markets: threatened vs unthreatened by the entry of a fiber ISP. I show that incumbents' network upgrade decisions are monotonic in market size in unthreatened markets while I establish a non-monotonic relation in threatened markets. This evidence is in line with the existing empirical literature on entry deterrence that suggests entry deterring behavior might be unnecessary in smaller markets and a pointless effort in larger markets. In contrast, medium-sized markets could still be a battleground where the incumbent may be able to affect the future competitive environment to a greater degree. Moreover, I employ a discrete hazard model to show that local markets where network upgrades by cable incumbents had already taken place are more likely to receive their first fiber ISP during the sample period.Item Antidumping Effects in the Presence of Collusion in an Upstream Market: the case of U.S. frozen shrimp imports from Thailand(2009) Suchato, Ravissa; McAusland, Carol; Horowitz, John K.; Agricultural and Resource Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Many studies have shown a relationship between antidumping duty and collusion. These studies, however, only focus on collusion in output (downstream) market, i.e. collusion between import competing firms and exporters, or among import competing firms. This dissertation explores how the antidumping duty on downstream goods can affect collusive behavior in an upstream market of exporters whom are sub jected to the duty. Bertrand duopoly model with infinite periods is developed to examine the effect of the antidumping duty on collusive behavior. Under a set of discount rate, whether is influenced by a tariff or the antidumping duty, the exporters will fully cooperate. The unaffected rate might be due to the linearity in input supply and output demand assumptions. Although the discount rate is not suffciently high enough to support the full cooperation, the collusive behavior is still feasible through self-enforcing agreement. With future period self-enforcing agreement, under the antidumping duty, the full cooperation in the initial period that is feasible under a set of the discount rate is called "the restricted full cooperation". The set under free trade that supports the full cooperation is smaller than the one supporting the restricted full cooperation. Therefore, the antidumping duty on downstream goods is pro-collusive in the upstream market. The theoretical result is tested by using Thai shrimp industry data during 1996-2009; the industry has been sub jected to the U.S. antidumping duty since 2005. 2SLS is employed to estimate a system of Thai fresh shrimp supply, the U.S. demand for Thai frozen shrimp, and the mark up equations. Using comparative static in supply approach, with an interaction between fresh shrimp price and rainfall as a supply rotator, the empirical results confirm that the antidumping duty increases the degree of collusion among the exporters in Thai shrimp market at 1 % significant level.Item ESSAYS ON COOPERATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRY INDUSTRIAL CLUSTERS(2005-01-25) Thompson, Theresa Marie; Betancourt, Roger R.; Minehart, Deborah F.; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)An industrial cluster is a group of firms that are specialized by sector, located in close geographic proximity and consist of mostly small and medium sized enterprises. An introduction to these clusters is provided in Chapter One. Chapter Two develops a model to examine the conditions under which clustered firms in a less developed country may cooperate in a "joint action" to market their output in a developed country, eliminating the role of an intermediary firm in the developed country. The clustered firms are heterogeneous in expected quality of output and know the quality type of other firms, but the foreign intermediary does not. The intermediary, however, has a lower marketing cost than the clustered firms. The main result of the model is that joint action can occur among high quality type firms, but the low quality firms always use the foreign intermediary to distribute their output. Chapter Three examines empirically two aspects of collective efficiency, one passive and one active, through the analysis of a survey of the surgical instrument cluster in Sialkot, Pakistan. First, I test an idea from relational contracting theory that informal relationships can substitute for formal enforcement through the judicial system. Inter-firm trust is measured as the amount of trade credit offered to customers. The results show that suppliers are more likely to offer trade credit when they believe in the effectiveness of formal contract enforcement and when they participate in business networks (proxied by inter-firm communication). Customer lock-in helps to develop inter-firm trust since firms give more credit when relationships are of longer duration. This is because locked-in customers are less able to find alternate suppliers. Chapter Three also examines the firm-level characteristics that determine the firms' interest in intra-cluster cooperation to market their own goods. The results demonstrate that firms are more likely to be interested in such initiatives once they have already had some direct experience in marketing, and when firms have a lower opportunity cost of leaving their current customers, where opportunity cost is measured by the length of the trading relationship.