Placement Director: Vijay Krishna
    (814) 863-8543
    vkrishna@psu.edu

Contact Information:
Mingzhe Tang
  Office: (814) 865-1108
  Home: (814) 360-5124
E-mail: mztang@psu.edu
Website: http://www.econ.psu.edu/~mzt115/

CITIZENSHIP:

• The People's Republic of China (F-1 Visa)

EDUCATION:

• Ph.D. in Economics, Pennsylvania State University , expected May 2008
• M.A. in Economics, Fudan University , Shanghai , China , 2002
• B.A. in Economics, Fudan University , Shanghai , China , 1999

PH.D. THESIS:

• Empirical Studies on Local Competition, Regulation and Broadband diffusion in the U.S. Telecommunications Industry
  Thesis Advisor: Professor Mark Roberts

FIELDS:

• Primary: Industrial Organization
• Secondary: Applied Microeconomics, Telecommunications Economics

PAPERS:

• “An Empirical Model of Investment by Cable Operators in  Broadband Digital Services”
• “Diversification of Cable Television System Operators into  the Broadband Market”
• “Entry and Exit in Local Telephone Markets”

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

• Instructor: Principles of Microeconomics, Summer 2007
• GenEd Project Coordinator & Teaching Assistant: 2004~2007
• Teaching Assistant: Demographic Economics, Public Finance, Principles of Macroeconomics, Principles of Microeconomics, 2002~2004

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE:

• Research Assistant for Professor Nezih Guner , Summer 2003

PRESENTATIONS & OTHER PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES:

• Presentation

  • An Empirical Study of Diversification of Cable Television Producers , the Honor Student Class, Department of Economics, Spring 2007
  • Entry and Exit in the Local Telephone Market , Applied Microeconomics Workshop, 2006

  Conference Participation

  • The 33 rd and 34 th Telecommunications Policy and Research Conference (TPRC) 2005-2006, George Mason University , Virginia
  • The Advanced Workshop in Regulation and Competition 2004-2005 Rutgers University , NJ

REFERENCES:

• Professor Mark Roberts, Thesis Advisor
• Professor Joris Pinkse
• Professor Edward Coulson

THESIS ABSTRACT

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the investment decisions of individual cable television operators in the U.S. I examine the decisions to diversify into offering broadband digital services such as high-speed Internet access service and digital cable television service over the period from 2000 to 2005. I estimate a dynamic programming model of cable operators' digital product decisions using a panel data set of 269 geographically segmented markets, and quantify how ownership, local market characteristics, economies of scope, economies of scale and sunk costs in this industry together impact firms' investment decisions by affecting the discounted expected profits of different choices. The model accommodates the fact that many firms choose sequential diversification into more than one broadband digital service by first initiating one service and adding the other one at a later date. After estimating the model using the nested pseudo-likelihood estimator, I find that the entry costs and unobserved fixed costs of offering different broadband digital services significantly affect cable operators' entry decisions. The entry cost of offering two digital services simultaneously is substantially greater than the cost of offering only one digital service as well as the sum of entry costs when sequential diversification is undertaken. In addition, I find that the probability of offering digital service rises with the local market revenue for basic cable services, and economies of scope and economies of scale encourage cable operators' to eventually diversify into offering two digital services. This study provides an explanation for the delayed broadband diffusion during the sample period in the U.S and suggests that policies to lower entry costs or increase the local market revenues for basic cable services can help the cable operators to accelerate broadband diffusion.

Essay 2. Diversification of Cable Television System Operators into the Broadband Market

This paper investigates broadband diffusion among cable systems, a type of facility-based broadband provider, and examines how competition policy affects the diffusion pattern. Two stages of broadband investment are distinguished, namely the decision to upgrade current one-way system into two-way capable and the subsequent decision to offer digital products. This paper examines the role of competition, regulation and other factors in both decisions. Empirical evidence shows that economies of scale and economies of scope encourage a large cable system to upgrade its network infrastructure and offer more new advanced services. The competition from Direct Broadcast Satellite services and telephone companies' DSL services impacts on the cable systems' upgrading and diversification decisions in a different way. In addition, the local regulatory environment also affects cable systems' upgrading decision.

Essay 3. Entry and Exit in Local Telephone Market