Economics of Markets and Pricing

• The purpose of this exercise is to apply the relevant principles, ideas, and concepts covered in this course to the analysis of a real world event or issue.
• You are required to write a short paper based on the following topic. The report is worth 10% of your final grade.

Topic

The writing assignment for MGEC92 this term is straight-forward. You are to write a short document describing the main pricing techniques used by at least three Canadian cellphone service providers. Your document should describe the pricing information you found from these companies and characterize their pricing approach, such as I feel this kind of price discrimination is being employed as evidenced by the following information I found during my research. Or perhaps they are using a number of different pricing strategies (bundling and two-part tariffs etc.) as shown by ….

Your report should cover at least two of the major companies (i.e. Rogers, Bell etc.) and, if possible, at least one smaller independent company not owned by a major player. You might find that the smaller independent firm(s) offer much different plans. If so, please explain why their approach might differ from that of a larger firm. If there are no independent firms not owned by a large player (supplier) what does this imply about the nature of the marketplace and the degree of competition. Use economic logic to help direct your analysis.

If possible your paper should address the level of competition, that is in your opinion, whether this is rising or falling, whether social welfare is improving or worsening, and what the government regulatory response to these developments should be (if any).

Basic requirements:
• 3-4 pages: typed main content, double spaced (regular margins top/bottom & right/left margins) with a 12 point font size.
• Reports must include: A cover page AND a list of sources used (neither of these count towards the page count total mentioned above).
• Hard copy to be submitted to the professor either in-class, to his office (IC-284).
• The reports can be done individually OR in groups of up to 4 people (in total) from MGEC92 this term.
Due date

Note
1) It is important that you cite all materials that you use (including web pages, i.e. cite the name of the web site and the URL address).

2) It is important that the report be written carefully, clearly and concisely. This paper is about the quality of your discussion and arguments rather than the quantity of material you present.

3) There will be a penalty for late submission (of 20% removed per day late).