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Essays on Price Discrimination, Auctions and Mergers
Essays on Price Discrimination, Auctions and Mergers
상세정보
- 자료유형
- 학위논문 서양
- 최종처리일시
- 20260202103512
- ISBN
- 9798315797289
- DDC
- 658
- 저자명
- Yang, Jin.
- 서명/저자
- Essays on Price Discrimination, Auctions and Mergers
- 발행사항
- [Sl] : Northwestern University, 2025
- 발행사항
- Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2025
- 형태사항
- 130 p
- 주기사항
- Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 86-12, Section: B.
- 주기사항
- Advisor: Porter, Robert.
- 학위논문주기
- Thesis (Ph.D.)--Northwestern University, 2025.
- 초록/해제
- 요약This dissertation consists of three chapters on various topics of empirical industrial organization. Chapter 1 studies price discrimination in rail freight transportation, where shippers facing different prices are also interdependent due to economies of scale across the railroad network. Consequently, even discriminated shippers can benefit from the increased demand among discounted shippers, as it improves scale and decreases costs for all. To assess the full effects of price discrimination under these externalities and contribute to the policy design debate, I develop and estimate a structural model of rail freight markets. Results show that a simple ban on all third-degree price discrimination reduces freight volumes and scale economies, by limiting railroads' ability to target discounts at their most price elastic shippers. In contrast, more tailored policies that permit certain discrimination can preserve quantity while mitigating misallocation. Based on these, I design a recently discussed price benchmark policy that implements reference pricing between small price-taking and large contract-negotiating shippers sharing selective characteristics. This approach both addresses distributional issues and increases total welfare by $500 million per year. My findings suggest that refined regulations distinguishing the sources of different price discrimination may better serve markets with externalities.Chapter 2 (joint with Junyan Guan) considers online auctions, whose popularity has declined since the early 2000s due to their high transaction costs. Our paper focuses on one such cost: the hassle cost of bidding in often prolonged online auctions. We develop a structural model of ascending auctions with costly bidding that resembles a war of attrition. We show that even in private value settings, bidders strategically shade their bids to avoid hassle. Using data from a large online auto auction platform, we estimate that the average bidder incurs hassle costs equivalent to 3.5% of the vehicle's price, while sellers lose 16% in revenue. Counterfactual simulations suggest that higher reserve prices can limit unproductive bidding and offset sellers' loss by 22%.Finally, in Chapter 3 (joint with Lydia Cao), we study how physician allocation changes following hospital mergers in the United States and the implications for healthcare provision. Using physician level data, we document three key post-merger patterns: (1) More physicians begin practicing simultaneously at both acquiring and target hospitals ("multi-homers"), likely due to the removal of firm boundaries. (2) Most new multi-homers come from the acquirer hospital, particularly in specialties where the acquirer initially had a relative surplus of physicians. (3) The average number of patients seen per multi-homer increases after a merger, and this growth appears to be at least partly driven by the reallocation of physicians across hospitals. Together, these findings suggest that post-merger hospital systems may restructure internally to improve physician-hospital matching and enhance output efficiency.
- 일반주제명
- Finance
- 키워드
- Auctions
- 키워드
- Healthcare
- 키워드
- Mergers
- 키워드
- Railroad
- 기타저자
- Northwestern University Economics
- 기본자료저록
- Dissertations Abstracts International. 86-12B.
- 전자적 위치 및 접속
- 로그인 후 원문을 볼 수 있습니다.
MARC
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■020 ▼a9798315797289
■035 ▼a(MiAaPQ)AAI32003512
■040 ▼aMiAaPQ▼cMiAaPQ
■0820 ▼a658
■1001 ▼aYang, Jin.
■24510▼aEssays on Price Discrimination, Auctions and Mergers
■260 ▼a[Sl]▼bNorthwestern University▼c2025
■260 1▼aAnn Arbor▼bProQuest Dissertations & Theses▼c2025
■300 ▼a130 p
■500 ▼aSource: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 86-12, Section: B.
■500 ▼aAdvisor: Porter, Robert.
■5021 ▼aThesis (Ph.D.)--Northwestern University, 2025.
■520 ▼aThis dissertation consists of three chapters on various topics of empirical industrial organization. Chapter 1 studies price discrimination in rail freight transportation, where shippers facing different prices are also interdependent due to economies of scale across the railroad network. Consequently, even discriminated shippers can benefit from the increased demand among discounted shippers, as it improves scale and decreases costs for all. To assess the full effects of price discrimination under these externalities and contribute to the policy design debate, I develop and estimate a structural model of rail freight markets. Results show that a simple ban on all third-degree price discrimination reduces freight volumes and scale economies, by limiting railroads' ability to target discounts at their most price elastic shippers. In contrast, more tailored policies that permit certain discrimination can preserve quantity while mitigating misallocation. Based on these, I design a recently discussed price benchmark policy that implements reference pricing between small price-taking and large contract-negotiating shippers sharing selective characteristics. This approach both addresses distributional issues and increases total welfare by $500 million per year. My findings suggest that refined regulations distinguishing the sources of different price discrimination may better serve markets with externalities.Chapter 2 (joint with Junyan Guan) considers online auctions, whose popularity has declined since the early 2000s due to their high transaction costs. Our paper focuses on one such cost: the hassle cost of bidding in often prolonged online auctions. We develop a structural model of ascending auctions with costly bidding that resembles a war of attrition. We show that even in private value settings, bidders strategically shade their bids to avoid hassle. Using data from a large online auto auction platform, we estimate that the average bidder incurs hassle costs equivalent to 3.5% of the vehicle's price, while sellers lose 16% in revenue. Counterfactual simulations suggest that higher reserve prices can limit unproductive bidding and offset sellers' loss by 22%.Finally, in Chapter 3 (joint with Lydia Cao), we study how physician allocation changes following hospital mergers in the United States and the implications for healthcare provision. Using physician level data, we document three key post-merger patterns: (1) More physicians begin practicing simultaneously at both acquiring and target hospitals ("multi-homers"), likely due to the removal of firm boundaries. (2) Most new multi-homers come from the acquirer hospital, particularly in specialties where the acquirer initially had a relative surplus of physicians. (3) The average number of patients seen per multi-homer increases after a merger, and this growth appears to be at least partly driven by the reallocation of physicians across hospitals. Together, these findings suggest that post-merger hospital systems may restructure internally to improve physician-hospital matching and enhance output efficiency.
■590 ▼aSchool code: 0163.
■650 4▼aFinance
■653 ▼aAuctions
■653 ▼aEmpirical industrial organization
■653 ▼aHealthcare
■653 ▼aMergers
■653 ▼aPrice discrimination
■653 ▼aRailroad
■690 ▼a0501
■690 ▼a0511
■690 ▼a0508
■690 ▼a0769
■71020▼aNorthwestern University▼bEconomics.
■7730 ▼tDissertations Abstracts International▼g86-12B.
■790 ▼a0163
■791 ▼aPh.D.
■792 ▼a2025
■793 ▼aEnglish
■85640▼uhttp://www.riss.kr/pdu/ddodLink.do?id=T17357439▼nKERIS▼z이 자료의 원문은 한국교육학술정보원에서 제공합니다.


