Spectrum Auction Design, Experience in Auctions, Implementation, and Post-Auction Market Structure
June 20, 2014
BACKGROUND
50 years after Columbia's William Vickrey's seminal contribution to auction theory, his ideas have been applied to governments' selling of spectrum licenses. The Federal Communications Commission in Washington is now considering extending Vickrey's ideas to a two-sided, "incentive", auction innovation. The FCC’s goal is to clear out TV stations and sell the freed spectrum to mobile network operators. It also wants to raise substantial revenues for the Federal budget. To do so it is considering approaches such as a Combinatorial Clock Auction ("CCA"), based on the Vickrey auction.
The aim of the conference is to look at the theoretical perspectives for such incentive auctions, how they have worked out in the real world, and what their prospects are. These issues are important to academics, industry stakeholders, and policymakers.
Agenda
9:30 Opening Remarks
Prof Eli Noam, CITI Director
9:45 Introduction
David Salant, Toulouse School of Economics
10:00 - 11:00 European CCA Experience (Moderator: Gary Biglaiser)
- Simon Edkins, Copenhagen Economics and formerly Orange
- Ernesto Wandeler, Boston Consulting Group
- Greg Attiyeh, FTI Consulting
11:00 – 11:15 Coffee Break
11:15 – 12:35 Bid Strategy and Preparations (Moderator: David Salant)
- Jon Levin, Stanford University (via Skype)
- Malcolm Ross, Merlin Consulting
- Matthias Leonhard, Deutsche Telekom AG
- Peter Cramton, University of Maryland
12:40 – 2:00 Lunch & Keynote Speaker
- Paul Milgrom, Stanford University
2:00 – 3:20 Auction Design Issues (Moderator: Eli Noam)
- Richard Steinberg, London School of Economics (with Mahyar Salek)
- Larry Ausubel, University of Maryland
- Michael Calabrese, New America Foundation
- Janice Obuchowski, Freedom Technologies
3:20 – 4:20 Bidder Concerns (Moderator: Malcolm Ross)
- Charla Rath, Verizon
- Christopher Wieczorek, T-Mobile
- Preston Padden, Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition
4:20 - 4:30 Coffee Break
4:30 – 5:30 Innovations for Incentive auctions (Moderator: David Salant)
- Evan Kwerel, Federal Communications Commission
- Ilya Segal, Stanford University (via Skype)
- Larry Ausubel, University of Maryland
- Greg Rosston, Stanford University
5:30 Concluding Remarks & Reception