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IS290-7 Information Technology Economics, Strategy, and Policy

Fall 2008




Tentative Schedule and Readings


Week 1 (Sep 8):

Topics: Course overview; Economics of IT; Anatomy of an economic model [slides]

Readings for Week 2:

  • S. Keshav, How to read a paper, ACM Sigcomm Computer Communication Review, July 2007.
  • Varian, H. Markets for Information Goods. Prepared for Bank of Japan conference, June 18-19, 1998. In conference proceedings: Monetary Policy in a World of Knowlege-Based Growth, Quality Change, and Uncertain Measurement, 2000.
  • Luenberger, D., Markets, Chapter 7 of Information Science, Princeton University Press, 2006.

 

Week 2 (Sep 15):

Discussion: Review of economic modeling

Lecture: Economics of Information Goods -- supply and demand, economies of scale, network effects [slides]

Readings for Week 3:

  • Varian, H., Economics of Information Technology. Mattioli Lecture at Bocconi University, Milan, Italy, 2001. (You can skim or skip Sections 5 & 6 this week; since we'll cover these topics next week.)
  • Sundararajan, A. Network Effects, part of the Industrial Organization of Information Technology Industries web site.

Additional Optional Readings:


Week 3 (Sep 22):

Discussion: Economics of Information Goods

Lecture: Business strategies -- pricing, versioning, bundling, lock-in [slides]

Readings for Week 4:

Additional Optional Readings:


Week 4 (Sep 29):

Discussion: Business strategies [discussion questions]

Lecture: New business models -- economics of 'free'; the Long Tail [slides]

Readings for Week 5:

Additional Optional Readings:


Week 5 (Oct 6):

Discussion: New business models [discussion questions]

Lecture: Economics of the Internet [slides]

Readings for Week 6:

Additional Optional Readings:


Week 6 (Oct 13):

Discussion: Economics of the Internet [discussion questions]

Lecture: Telecommunications Regulation and Policy [slides][pdf]

Readings for Week 7:

Additional Optional Readings:


Week 7 (Oct 20):

Discussion: Telecommunications Policy [discussion questions]

Lecture: Economics of peer production; introduction to game theory [slides][pdf]

Readings for Week 8:

Additional Optional Readings:

  • Kevin Leyton-Brown, Yoav Shoham, Essentials of Game Theory: A Concise Multidisciplinary Introduction, Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2008. (Google Book Search allows you to preview this book.)
  • E. Tardos and V. Vazirani, Basic Solution Concepts and Computational Issues, Chapter 1, Sections 1.1 to 1.3 of N. Nisan, T. Roughgarden, E. Tardos, V. Vazirani, eds., Algorithmic Game Theory, Cambridge University Press, 2007. (Skim the rest of Chapter 1 if you wish.)

Week 8 (Oct 27):

Discussion: Economics of peer production

Lecture: Incentive-centered design; Reputation and recommender systems [slides][pdf]

Readings for Week 9:

Additional Optional Readings:


Week 9 (Nov 3):

Discussion: Incentive-centered design; Reputation and recommender systems [discussion questions]

Lecture: Economics of information -- information asymmetry, value of information [slides][pdf]

Readings for Week 10:

Additional Optional Readings:


Week 10 (Nov 10):

Discussion: Economics of information [discussion questions]

Lecture: Economics of search [slides][pdf]

Readings for Week 11:

  • Varian, H., The Economics of Internet Search, Angelo Costa lecture delivered in Rome, February 2007.
  • Varian, H., Our secret sauce. The official Google Blog, 2.25.2008.
  • Lahaie, Pennock, Saberi, Vohra, Sponsored Search Auctions, Chapter 28 of N. Nisan, T. Roughgarden, E. Tardos, V. Vazirani, eds., Algorithmic Game Theory, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Additional Optional Readings:


Week 11 (Nov 17):

Discussion: Economics of search [discussion questions]

Lecture: Platform competition; Two-sided Markets [slides][pdf]

Readings for Week 12:

Additional optional readings:


Week 12 (Nov 24):

Discussion: Platform competition; Two-sided Markets [discussion questions]

Lecture: Economics of security and privacy [slides][pdf]

Readings for Week 13:

Additional Optional Readings:



Week 13 (Dec 1):

Discussion: Economics of security and privacy

Project presentations (10 minutes per group; email ppt to John before noon on Dec 1) [powerpoint template]:

  • Bob Bell and Ashwin Mathew: Internet Infrastructure in Africa
  • Ben Cohen and Joyce Tsai: Economics of Manga
  • Anuradha Roy and Gopal Vaswani: Economics of News

Course review and evaluation [slides][pdf]


Week 14 (Dec 8):

Project presentations (10 minutes per group; email ppt to John before noon on Dec 8) [powerpoint template]:

  • Becky Hurwitz, James Tucker, Patrick Wheeler: Economics of Censorship
  • Kesava Mallela: Location-aware Coupons
  • Dipti Desai: Peer-to-peer lending
  • Pierre Tchetgen: Agriculture in Cameroon
  • Matt Gedigian and Neha Kumar: Mobile "missed calls" in the developing world.
  • Karen Nomorosa and Luke Rhee: Economics of Software as a Service
  • Abe Coffman, Joshua Gomez, Ashkan Soltani: Frameworks to Assess the Value of Personal Information
  • Ruchi Kumar, Ben Moskowitz, Kentaro Suzuki: Strategy and policy recommendations for stakeholders in the online video age
  • Josh Blumenstock: Modeling P2P Demand
  • Hyunwoo Park: Social networking platform competition simulation


Friday Dec 12: Project Report due (email to John)