Science, Technology, and Society Seminar: STS Circle at Harvard (Hybrid)
Date and Time
Location
"Performativity, Complexity, and Framing in the FCC Spectrum Incentive Auction"
Speaker:
Jeffrey Fossett, PhD Candidate, Technology and Operations Management Unit, Harvard Business School.
Moderator:
Lou Lennad, PhD Candidate in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School.
Contact:
Laura Flynn
lauraflynn@hks.harvard.edu
Cosponsored by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Chair:
Sheila Jasanoff, Faculty Associate. Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies; Professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy, Committee on Degrees in Environmental Science and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School.
Attendance Information:
- Please register to attend this event in person at CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge Street, Thomas Chan-Soo Kang Room (S050). A light lunch is provided for those that register by 1:00pm on the Thursday before the event.
- Please sign up to attend this event via Zoom
Abstract:
In this paper, I study the Federal Communication Commission’s 2016 Spectrum Incentive Auction, which was developed in collaboration with academic market design economists to reallocate spectrum broadcasting rights from local cable television broadcasters to mobile broadband providers. The paper will proceed in three parts. First, I will analyze the Incentive Auction from the perspective of the performativity of economics (e.g. Mitchell 2007; MacKenzie 2008), focusing especially on the work of “framing” (Callon 1998)--that is, the work of delineating the economic objects, agents, and decisions that would be “on stage” and hence relevant in auction transactions. I will show that none of this framing was accomplished “for free”, but instead required various background legal, political, and material investments to hold in place. Second, I will zoom out and examine the design flexibility of the auction as whole. Of the many ways that the public problem of spectrum reallocation might have been addressed , how and why was the Incentive Auction understood as a necessary, appropriate, and ultimately successful solution? In addressing this question, I will focus especially on the role of “complexity” in rendering the auction, its particular form, and expert intervention more broadly, as necessary. I will argue that rendering the problem “complex” is a co-productive move (Jasanoff 2004): it involves both (1) making a fact about the economic reality, and (2) drawing a normative implication about the need for particular sorts of economic expertise in helping to manage it. In the third and final part of the paper, I will consider the auction’s success, exploring how it was rendered successful despite evidence of overflowing (Callon 1998) in the form of strategic manipulation by private equity firms and multi-station owners (Doraszelski et al. 2017).
Bio:
Jeff Fossett is a doctoral student in the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School and is completing a graduate secondary in STS with the Harvard Program on Science, Technology & Society. His research examines the economics and governance of digital technologies, with a particular focus on the role of economic expertise in public policy. Jeff holds an A.M. in Statistics from Harvard University and a B.A. in Mathematics and Philosophy from Williams College.