Aditya Bhave's Homepage

Working papers

      Bank Runs and Inefficient Risk Sharing, 2013.

      Primary-Market Auctions for Event Tickets: Eliminating the Rents of ‘Bob the Broker’ [with Eric Budish], 2013.     [Show Abstract]

Abstract: Economists have long been puzzled by event-ticket underpricing: underpricing reduces revenue for the performer, and encourages socially wasteful rent-seeking by ticket brokers. Why not use an auction to set price correctly? This paper studies the recent introduction of auctions into the event-ticket market by Ticketmaster. By combining primary-market data from Ticketmaster with secondary-market resale value data from eBay, we show that Ticketmaster’s auctions work: the auctions substantially improve price discovery, roughly double performer revenues, and, on average, nearly eliminate the arbitrage profits associated with underpriced tickets. The data thus suggest that auctions can eliminate the speculator rent-seeking that has been associated with this market since the 19th century, and that seems to have exploded in volume in the 21st century. [Hide Abstract]

Publications

      Military Coups and the Consequences of Durable de facto Power: The Case of Pakistan [with Christopher Kingston], Economics of Governance (2010), 11(1): 51-76.

Curriculum Vitae

      CV

I am a 5th year graduate student at the University of Chicago's Department of Economics. To contact me, please e-mail abhave@uchicago.edu.