BUST08005 Business Economics Essay One 2023
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Business Economics – BUST08005
Essay One 2023 (weight 50%)
This year’s first essay assignment is split in four sections. Your task is to solve TWO OUT OF THE FOUR of the following projects using the knowledge acquired in class in combination with your own research. Each of the two sections you choose carries equal weight in the determination of the final mark for the essay:
Welcome to the University of Edinburgh Consulting Division (UECD). As an intern, you will be reporting to Lukas, the Director of Economics and Business Analytics and assist him in carrying out consultancy projects for clients all over the world. This summer, however, Lukas was trampled by a running bull while holidaying in Spain and his leg is in a cast. He cannot travel so you now must take the lead in the following projects:
PROJECT ONE: GENEVA.
Right after meeting Lukas, he assigns you your first task: “ We have a project with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) that involves modelling the demand for broadband services using the latest available data. The person who was managing the project has recently left the company, taking all his notes with him, including the records of his client interactions. The only remaining item is a reference he requested from the documentation department (See reading below). I recall that his strategy was to create two distinct econometric models for explaining the penetration of fixed and mobile broadband services across a sample of countries. Perhaps the reading will offer you some insights on how to proceed with this project.”
The client expects a concise report (approximately 1000 words) comprising four distinct sections:
a) Selection of explanatory variables (with references to other relevant publications and theoretical concepts).
b) Model specifications and data collection.
c) Discussion of your econometric outcomes (with a particular focus on demand elasticities and how they differ between the fixed and mobile models).
d) Brief mention of the limitations of your approach and potential methods for enhancing your models.
Please provide your raw data as one of the appendices to the report. That is mandatory.
Essential Reading:
Galperin and Ruzzier (2013) Price elasticity of demand for broadband: Evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean. Telecommunications Policy 37 (2013) 429–438
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596112001127
Hint: Unlike the tutorial exercise, you will have to collect your own data for the last available year. The links
below will be useful:
https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx
https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Dashboards/Pages/IPB.aspx
Note that you will still have to collect additional variables from other sources, such as the World Bank Databank.
PROJECT TWO: MADRID
The following month, you travel to Madrid to meet Antonia, the Head of Marketing at El Corte Inglés, the largest Spanish retailer. They recently made the decision to discontinue major sports sponsorships in order to shift their focus towards retail and food events. However, the success and global impact of Spain's victory in the last Women's FIFA World Cup has prompted them to reconsider. They are now exploring the possibility of sponsoring a female football club in the Liga F. To make an informed investment choice, they have commissioned a benchmarking analysis of the efficiency of Liga F's teams. This analysis should also consider the performance of teams from another country's top division in women's football, such as Germany's Frauen-Bundesliga or France's Division 1 Féminine. One aspect that the client wants the report to cover is the "social" performance of the team, to assess the potential advertising reach of a sponsorship agreement. The client has invited the UECD and ten other consulting firms to submit competitive proposals for winning this project.
You contact Lukas back in Edinburgh, and he suggests that you gather data and submit an initial report (approximately 1,000 words) using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to conduct a basic efficiency study according to the client's specifications. He also provides a relevant reading that could be useful (see below).
Your report should encompass the following aspects:
a) Select a DEA approach for the consulting study. Which variables will you incorporate? (outputs, inputs, external factors). What type of returns to scale and efficiency orientation will you utilize? Justify your selections.
b) Describe your dataset and indicate its sources.
c) Present the results and explain the main implications for the client.
d) Explain at least two ways in which you can enhance the model if the client awards this project to the UECD.
Remember that tables and appendices are excluded from the word count.
Essential Reading:
Fabíola Zambom-Ferraresi, Fernando Lera-López & Belén Iráizoz (2017) And if the ball does not cross the line?
A comprehensive analysis of footballclubs’ performance, Applied Economics Letters, 24:17, 1259-1262.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2016.1270408
Hint: Data for women’s football teams may be difficult to find. Do not leave this task to the end. Follow the
instructions from the second Tutorial. Remember that you can download the DEAP software from
https://economics.uq.edu.au/files/3918/DEAP-xp1.zip
It only works on Windows, but it does not require installation, so you can use it on any Uni Computer.
PROJECT THREE: ATLANTA.
Lukas is a personal friend of Kate, the Head of Sales of Delta Airlines (they coincided in their Masters year in Edinburgh) and thanks to that contact, another project opportunity has come up. Lukas forwards you Kate´s email alongside a return business-class ticket to Atlanta International Airport (ATL). You read the email on the plane down to Heathrow:
Lukas,
Hope you are well, remember the HR mess that I mentioned last time? Well, it has escalated a little bit and now we have a really bad climate in the office. It appears that some people in my sales team have not been warning customers about the consequences of using “hidden-city tickets”, and a group of consumers have sued Delta Airlines (DL) about losing their travel miles. The company is looking to fire the employees responsible for this mess. I need to commission a short report (approx. 1,000 words) on the existence of “hidden-city tickets” in routes between our main hubs to send our legal department. I would normally use our internal economics division for this job but, given the close relationship they have with my sales team, I prefer to use an external consultant. I wonder if you have someone that can draft the report and come to our office in downtown Atlanta to deliver a presentation with its main findings.
Looking forward to your reply,
Kate
While waiting for your flight connection in London, Lukas gives you a call and says that this is an easy one. Since you will have internet access in the plane, you can do this during the transatlantic flight. He recommends that you use the websitewww.skiplagged.comto do your research, and that you focus only on DL flights to be flown in any week of November 2023. Lukas wants to revise your work after you land before sending it to Kate, so you must email him a 1,000-word report with, at least, the following contents:
e) Introduction to the concept of hidden-city ticketing (illustrated with a screenshot of the largest hidden-city fare difference you found)
f) Describe your research on DL fares and present the main findings (supported by a summary table) g) Explain the economic reasons for the existence of this type of tickets.
h) Explain why they are damaging for DL and its customers.
Essential Reading:
CTV (2017) Hidden city ticketing: How air travellers are taking chances to save big
GAO (2001) Restricting airline ticketing rules unlikely to help consumers
PROJECT FOUR: NASSAU.
The Delta project went very well. When dropping you at the airport, Kate says: “I know some people who are looking for a pricing consultant. Yesterday I was contacted by a company called FYRE looking to rent an aircraft for some charter flights. They told me that they are organizing a big music festival in the Bahamas. Here is the link to their promo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz5kY3RsmKo. I can give you FYRE’s contact, since you are already in the US, I think they will be happy to pay for your plane ticket to Nassau and cover your expenses while in there”. After talking to Lukas, you call FYRE and, with Kate´s reference, they are happy to bring you in as a pricing consultant for the music festival.
Once in Nassau, you meet FYRE’s marketing manager Grant. He explains that they are organizing the festival in a small and remote island, so they are currently busy in planning the transportation (by plane or boat), accommodation, and catering for all attendees. However, your job is exclusively about pricing: Grant is very clear about the different types of festival experiences that he wishes to offer, however, the previous pricing consultant resigned due to disagreements with him. You can access all the data available so far and continue the project from there. Grant has designed three types of tickets, which only differ in terms of the quality of transport, accommodation and catering provided for the festival attendees: 1) the basic “Villa” ticket, which includes flights, standard meals, and shared accommodation in a beach villa; 2) the middle-end “Lodge” ticket, which improves the quality of meals and includes private accommodation for small groups; and 3), the high-level “Ocean” ticket, which includes transportation and accommodation in a cruise ship, as well as luxury meals. After doing some research, the previous pricing consultant identified five demand segments (“VIP”, “Influencer”, “Music”, “Traveller”, and “Civilian”). He estimated the average willingness to pay of a representative individual in each segment for each of the three types of tickets. In addition, there are estimates of the market size and the costs of the marketing campaign that would be necessary to reach each segment. The operations team has also provided estimates of both fixed costs and unit costs associated to each ticket version. All this information is summarized in Table 1. Finally, the marketing team also advises that reaching the “Civilians” segment is going to require distribution through third-party booking platforms (i.e. like Ticketmaster) which will take a 30% commission on our recommended retail price.
The next day in the office, one of your co-workers reveals that the costs above do not cover renting the land for the festival site as well as other “hidden fees” that FYRE must pay to government officials. These extra costs add up to 2 million US dollars and they must be paid upfront so they need to make the highest possible profit from ticket sales. She also says that the last consultant got into a huge fight with Grant because of the number of ticket versions to offer. In this context, your job is to determine the optimal pricing strategy for the FYRE festival: how many ticket versions should they offer? At what prices? Summarize your method and conclusions in a short report (approx. 1,000 words plus tables). If you must cancel a ticket version, bear in mind that Grant will not accept any recommendation that is not supported by numerical data. After looking at the final results, do you have any further advice for the festival organizers?
Hint: The FYRE festival was a real event, but this case study is fictional. In solving the exercise, you must follow the indications provided in the relevant Tutorial.
You can provide tables, figures, screenshots, and appendices (e.g. with additional calculations) to support your arguments. These contents will not be part of the essay’sword count but they will be positively valued (5% of marks). You are also expected to look for your own additional references, which can include academic papers, industry reports, press releases, legal documentation, online videos, and other sources. Separate lists of references must be provided at the end of each section. Formatting and presentation will also be taken into account for the final mark (5%).
Essay length: 2,000 words (+/- 10% according to the University regulations)
Deadline: 2pm on Monday, November 6th 2023
Any questions please contact your tutor first.
Dr. Augusto Voltes-Dorta
Course Organiser
2023-11-07