Ticket Markets

This page collects my work on ticket markets. This market has been of interest to me for a long time, dating back to queues at Ticketmaster kiosks for concert tickets as a teenager, and going with my dad to see the Mets clinch the 1986 pennant with scalped tickets.

For my views on this market overall, the best place to look is my 2019 keynote address at the Federal Trade Commission. Also fun is the 2017 Freakonomics podcast episode, “Why is the Live-Event Ticket Market So Screwed Up?” My forthcoming research paper on auctions and “Bob the Broker” was a labor of love, even if auctions in the primary-market for concert tickets have faded from use. If you want to show your students that “auctions work” at discovering prices, check out Figure 1.