FCC License Auctions: Lessons from a Tumultuous Twelve Years, A Conversation with Vernon Smith and David Porter

Speaker:             Vernon Smith and David Porter
Topic:                  Lessons from the FCC’s Wireless License Auctions
When:                 Tuesday, May 2, 2006, 4pm (reception following)
Where:                George Mason University School of Law, Room 120

The Information Economy Project is delighted to launch its speakers’ series, “Big Ideas about Information,” on Tuesday, May 2.  This series, featuring world-class thinkers addressing key questions about markets, public policy, and information technology, debuts with an address by two scholars who have made seminal contributions to experimental economics. 

Vernon Smith, Professor of Economics & Law at George Mason University and 2002 Nobel Laureate in Economics, and David Porter, Professor, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science at George Mason University, are internationally renowned experts on the structure of auctions.   Having been involved in the design and implementation of the competitive bidding mechanisms used by the Federal Communications Commission to award wireless licenses since 1994,  there is much to learn from their assessment of how license auctions have worked, how they might be improved, and how they have impacted the allocation of radio spectrum rights. 

Paper forthcoming in the Journal of Law, Economics & Policy available here.

The Law School is located at 3301 Fairfax Drive, Arlington, Virginia, within steps of the Virginia Square-GMU Metro (Orange Line). 

Article Published from this Lecture:

David Porter & Vernon Smith, FCC License Experiment Design: A 12-Year Experiment, Journal of Law, Economics and Policy (Vol. 3:1, 2006). Big Ideas About Information Lecture: FCC License Auctions: Lessons from a Tumultuous Twelve Years, May 2, 2006, George Mason University School of Law, Arlington, Virginia.

"FCC License Experiment Design: A 12-Year Experiment" by David Porter & Vernon Smith, 3 Journal of Law, Economics and Policy 63-80 (2006), Quick Links: Big Ideas About Information, David Porter, Vernon Smith