I am a Senior Economist at the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Office of Economics & Analytics. Previously, between 2011 and 2015, I was an Economist in the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB) and Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB).  At the FCC, I advise senior-level policymakers on economic and regulatory issues.  I have provided economic expertise on various rule makings, mergers, and secondary market transactions, primarily involving the allocation of electromagnetic spectrum.  In 2013 and 2019, I was one of the recipients of the FCC’s Excellence in Economic Analysis Award.

Between 2015 and 2017, I served various roles on the faculty of Michigan State University, with the prime one being a Research Assistant Professor at the Quello Center in MSU’s College of Communications Arts and Sciences. Before returning to the FCC, in the first half of 2018, I was Associate Director of the Brandmeyer Center for Applied Economics at the University of Kansas, School of Business.

I am an economist by training with a research focus on vertical arrangements and structural changes between firms as well as in firm price discrimination strategies. In my recent work, I have delved into these issues in the context of regulation in media and information markets, including with regard to network neutrality, price cap regulation of upstream wireline service markets, and wireless deployment.

I earned a Ph.D. in economics at Washington University in St. Louis (WUStL).  It was at WUStL that I first developed my interest in industrial organization.  My Ph.D. dissertation, entitled “Essays on Consumer Shopping Behavior and Price Dispersion” (view dissertation) explored how firm policies and characteristics influence consumer shopping behavior in the presence of information asymmetries and in turn, how shopping behavior affects firm price and non-price policy.  As a graduate student, I taught or assisted in teaching various microeconomics classes.  In recognition of my teaching, I received the 2009 Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence (Award Letter) and the 2008 Economics Department Teaching Assistant Award (Award Letter).

In 1989, my family immigrated from Kiev, Ukraine to the United States (which I distinctly recall thinking of as the “Land of Bubblegum”).  I spent the remainder of my childhood and most of my adolescence in Brooklyn, NY, where I developed a taste for pizza, but not so much economics.  I entered my twenties in scenic Binghamton, NY, where I got my first bite of economics and later decided to move to the Midwest because I was hungry for more.  A lifelong passion was born.  My interests outside economics include reading and on occasion writing, cooking, hiking, and rock climbing.  I also enjoy democracy, making people laugh, parenting, and long walks and radiant sunsets (more so in the company of my wife and daughter).