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Does Pricing of Internet Usage Steer Consumers or Meter Usage? Evidence from a Pricing Experiment

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2026
Competition authorities have expressed concern that firms selling broadband internet and TV subscriptions may employ usage-based pricing (UBP) of internet to steer consumers toward TV over streaming video. We study this issue with household-level panel data from an internet service provider's UBP experiment, capturing the prices' effects on internet and TV subscriptions, internet usage, and firm revenue. We find that this specific UBP policy largely served to meter internet usage by high-demand households rather than steer them toward TV. Households' payments increased due to usage-related overage charges and internet subscription upgrades to avoid overages. Some households avoided internet-related payments by reducing usage rather than adding TV subscriptions.

Health Care Access, Costs, and Treatment Dynamics: Evidence from In Vitro Fertilization

American Economic Review 2018 108(12), 3725-3777 open access
We study public policies designed to improve access and reduce costs for in vitro fertilization (IVF). High out-of-pocket prices can deter potential patients from IVF, while active patients have an incentive to risk costly high-order pregnancies to improve their odds of treatment success. We analyze IVF's rich choice structure by estimating a dynamic model of patients' choices within and across treatments. Policy simulations show that insurance mandates for treatment or hard limits on treatment aggressiveness can improve access or costs, but not both. Insurance plus price-based incentives against risky treatment, however, can together improve patient welfare and reduce medical costs.