THE IMPLICATIONS OF PAPERLESS TICKETING
United States of America et al. v. Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. and Live Nation, Inc., Antitrust Complaint, Case 1:10-cv-009139, January 25, 2010.
Antitrust Institute, “advocated for the Justice Department to take new enforcement action against the company and for Congress to consider passing legislation that would clarify and strengthen U.S. antitrust laws, or require codes of conduct for digital ticketing platforms.” He also called for more transparency, especially into how Ticketmaster decides service fees. Ticketmaster’s relationships with major US venues were also heavily questioned by senator Klobuchar because these venues know that “if they move their primary ticketing business away from Ticketmaster they risk losing the revenue they earn from Live Nation concerts.” This can be seen in Ticketmaster, controlling more than 70% of the market for ticketing and live events; it controls much of the promotion of those events; and it either owns or has year-long exclusive contracts with many large venues. This co-dependent relationship with these venues needs to change, along with their limitations on secondary market sales. A solution to this could be to allow other resellers technological access to transfer tickets by lifting credit card restrictions. The effects of this benefiting the secondary market can also be seen at Stubhub, recently having made this change in their reselling model(NPR, 2023).
make it easier for fans to attend the events they want to see, and makes buying tickets more efficient. However, there are many drawbacks to paperless ticketing as monopolies like TicketMaster control a significant portion of the paperless ticketing market. Ticketmaster often takes advantage of this power by setting high service charges, controlling the distribution of tickets, and limiting consumer choice, which hurts consumer welfare. The ticketing industry needs increased regulation to ensure that consumers have fair access to tickets and are not taken advantage of by monopolies like Ticketmaster.
Pociask, Steve. “Paperless Tickets, Costly to Consumers - the American Consumer Institute.” American Consumer Institute, 2014.
Perry, Professor of Economics and Finance, University of Michigan (Flint Campus), 2011.
Overall, paperless ticketing has had a number of implications for both the primary and secondary ticket markets. Paperless ticketing can be beneficial for consumers, as it can help to reduce fraud,
Hurwitz, James D. “Restrictive Paperless Tickets: A White Paper by the American Antitrust.” American Antitrust Institute, 2012.
Treisman, Rachel. “The Senate’s Ticketmaster Hearing Featured Plenty of Taylor Swift Puns and Protesters.” NPR, 2023.
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REFERENCES “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour Onsale Explained.” Ticketmaster, 2022. Rascher, Daniel A., and Andrew D. Schwarz. “The Antitrust Implications of ‘Paperless Ticketing’ on Secondary Markets.” Journal of Competition Law & Economics 9, no. 3 (2013): 655-708.
Pickert, Kate. “A Brief History of Ticketmaster.” TIME Business 2009. Pray, Marie Connolly, and Alan B. Krueger. “Rockonomics: The Economics of Popular Music.” The National Bureau of Economic Research, 2008. Harrington, David. “Uncapping Ticket Markets.” Regulation 33, no. 3 (2010):12. Knopper, Steve. “Inside Ticketmaster’s Empire: The Ticketing Giant Wants to Rule the Concert Biz. Should You Be Afraid?” Rolling Stone, 2009. Perry, Mark J. “The Economics and Logic of Ticket Scalping.” The Trading Report, 2011. Hogan, Michael. “Live Nation to Roll Out Dynamic Pricing, Everyone Else Just Rolls Eyes.” News Items. Quot-ing Mark.
LEMON & DEGREES: ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION By Aaron Mathew
On September 17, 2022, Wisconsin native Joey Giorgi scored a touchdown for the Columbia Lions. Surprisingly, Columbia’s ensuing 38-3 rout of Marist College wasn’t their most significant victory that week. Because just five days earlier, the university didn’t exist–at least, not according to US News & World Reports. On July 8th, 2022, US News & World Reports announced that they would be removing Columbia University from their sought-after “Best National University Rankings” following a 21-page exposé released by Columbia faculty Michael Thaddeus. The report alleged that this Ivy League institution falsified data that it submitted to the magazine in an attempt to artificially boost their overall ranking. While the university was reinstated two months later (albeit with an unexplained sixteen-rank drop), many took this ruling as an opportunity to examine the shrouded yet powerful role of US News & World Reports.
of them rely on the Best National University Rankings to solidify their decisions. According to Colin Diver, former dean of the University of Pennsylvania law school, this dependence is natural, as he explains, “It’s based on a not-irrational premise that you’re more likely not only to get jobs, but you’re more likely to get noticed, you’re more likely to have good connections. You’ll have a pedigree, and in America, a little of that is conferred by family, but most of it is conferred by education.” There’s an issue with this premise, however. These prospective enrollees make these monumental decisions with no real certainty regarding the quality of education at any of these universities. How different is the 31st school in the country from the 48th? Seventeen discrete ranks separate two colleges that, for all anyone knows, are exactly the same! This dilemma gives way to the ultimate issue: How can one make a decision without actually knowing what it is they’re choosing to do? For an answer, one must visit a used car lot.
OVERVIEW
LEMONS & PEACHES
Each year, millions of students embark on the journey towards higher education, and many
In 1970, about thirty-two years before Giorgi was born, UC Berkeley professor George Akerlof published
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IT’S BASED ON A NOT-IRRATIONAL PREMISE THAT YOU’RE MORE LIKELY NOT ONLY TO GET JOBS, BUT YOU’RE MORE LIKELY TO GET NOTICED, YOU’RE MORE LIKELY TO HAVE GOOD CONNECTIONS. YOU’LL HAVE A PEDIGREE, AND IN AMERICA, A LITTLE OF THAT IS CONFERRED BY FAMILY, BUT MOST OF IT IS CONFERRED BY EDUCATION.
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“The Market for Lemons”, a seminal paper on asymmetric information for which he received the Nobel Prize in Economics. The article’s title refers to “lemons”, a colloquial term for a car with a significant defect that appears identical to the rest of the lot. They contrast “peaches”, which are undervalued cars in good working order. Akerlof details that the conundrum of purchasing a used car is a gamble between receiving a lemon or a peach, with buyers essentially blind between the two. The used car market is thus an
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