Until 184, Federal regulation sanctioned monopoly as the primary mechanism for distributing natural gas. Pipelines were granted protected markets and permitted to acquire and distribute gas only through long-term contracts. To buy or sell gas, users and producers had to deal with the pipeline,...

This research seeks to determine the extent to which the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's policy of "Open Access" to natural gas pipelines has created competition in natural gas markets. We argue that recently developed cointegration techniques are the natural way to evaluate competition...

We use graph theoretic methods to model arbitrage on the evolving topology of the natural gas pipeline network following pipeline deregulation. We estimate models of spot prices over the network and show that the emergence, evolution and performance of natural gas pipelines brought about by the...

This research seeks to determine the extent to which the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's policy of "Open Access" to natural gas pipelines has created competition in natural gas markets. We argue that recently developed cointegration techniques are the natural way to evaluate competition...

Recent regulatory changes permitted natural gas pipelines to become "open access" transporters. This change in pipeline carrier status dissolved regulatory barriers to markets. This paper describes the institutions that were developed to support exchange in gas markets and observes and evaluates...

We estimate the probability distributions of budgets, revenues, returns, and profits to G-, PG-, PG13-, and R-rated movies. The distributions are non-Gaussian and show a self-similar stable Paretian form with nonfinite variance and nonstationary mean. The profit distributions have asymmetric...

Are motion picture audiences influenced by box office reports? Do they `herd' after the leaders and ignore possibly better but less popular films? How important is a big opening to the revenue a film eventually earns? This paper develops a dynamical learning model of motion picture demand that...

Piracy is one of the most challenging problems faced by the motion picture industry. The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that US studios lose more than $3 billion annually in box office revenue from piracy. They have launched a major effort to prevent these losses. Yet their...

The blockbuster strategy---using big budgets, stars, and advertising to create high opening week box office grosses---is based on the theory that motion picture audiences follow an information cascade by choosing movies according to how heavily they are advertised, what stars are in them, and...