Global Innovation - The Paul Merage School of Business - University ...

FACULTY INSIGHTS
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experience INNOVATION
RICHARD MCKENZIE
Professor of Economics
In Defense of Monopoly:
How Market Power Fosters
Creative Production
Professor McKenzie and Dwight R.
Lee of the University of Georgia
claim that conventional, static models
exaggerate the harm done by
real-world monopolies, and show why
some degree of monopoly presence
is needed to improve human welfare over time. An economic
system’s failure to efficiently allocate its resources,
the authors write, is actually a necessary precondition for
maximizing the economy’s long-term performance.
McKenzie and Lee demonstrate that creating goods
and services requires competition as well as the prospect
of gains beyond a normal competitive rate of return.
Why Popcorn Costs So
Much at the Movies and
Other Pricing Puzzles
(As featured on ABC-TVs Nightline)
Professor McKenzie finds that the
U.S. Supreme Court’s 1948
antitrust ruling laid the foundation
for costly movie popcorn and other
snack bar edibles. The ruling prohibited
movie studios from owning theaters, which
forced theater owners to bid for films.
That allowed studios to take a bigger cut of the films’
revenues, leaving theater owners to make most of their
profits from concession sales.
Beyond popcorn, McKenzie takes a fun, but illuminating
look at the hidden truths of marketing and some of
the pricing puzzles consumers face — Are we really
fooled by prices that end in 9? Why do new cars instantly
lose so much value? If holiday clearance sales are
about excess inventory, shouldn't retailers hire better
buyers? And why do coffee shops offer free WiFi?
Four Merage
Professors Win
Academic Awards
PROFESSOR CRISTINA GIBSON
received the 2008 Pedagogical
Innovation Award from the UC Irvine
Academic Senate Council. Professors
Thomas Eppel, Sherri Treasurywala and
Shuya Yin were also nominated for
excellence in teaching.
Gibson’s award was for her course on Global
Collaboration that is interactive and involves exercises,
case studies, projects and discussions. Students were
divided into teams representing universities based both
within and outside the United States.
SHUYA YIN, assistant professor of
operations and decision technologies,
was named Merage School honoree for
teaching Management Science and
Operations Management.
THOMAS EPPEL
AND SHERRI
TREASURYWALA
were named UC Irvine
Lecturers of the Year.
Eppel’s class, Business
and Management in the
World Today, focused on globalization and current
trends. Treasurywala developed two innovative elective
courses on the business of science and the business of
medicine for Merage’s undergraduate program.