Peter Cramton, Ph.D., Senior Expert

Peter Cramton is a Senior Expert at Empiris LLC and a Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland. He is an expert on auctions, bargaining, and market exchange. Much of his recent work has applied this expertise to reverse auctions for troubled assets. Furthermore, his research has focused on spectrum policy and the restructuring of infrastructure industries (especially electricity).

Professor Cramton’s most recent research has focused on troubled asset auctions. His work in this area has involved the design of an efficient auction for troubled assets that would maximize the value of a government relief fund for those assets and laboratory experiments that show the efficacy of the auction design. This research has received national media attention in venues such as Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, and PBS.

Professor Cramton also has extensive consulting experience in the areas of e-commerce, spectrum management, and electricity deregulation. He has advised NECX, PharmasMarket.com, Tradeweave, and other e-commerce market makers on market design for business-to-business and business-to-consumer trading. For several utilities, Professor Cramton has led the auction design for generation asset divestiture, standard offer service, and NUG entitlements under power purchase agreements. He has advised ISO New England on the design of New England's wholesale electricity market, as well as the California Power Exchange on market design issues.

With respect to spectrum management, he has served as the lead auction advisor in spectrum auctions for many clients. His auction practice is worldwide, including engagements in the United States, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Austria, and Singapore. He has advised the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice on spectrum auctions, and has advised several foreign governments on the design and implementation of spectrum auctions.

Previously, Professor Cramton was an Associate Professor at Yale University and a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.  Professor Cramton has published numerous articles in scholarly journals, including American Economic Review, Econometrica, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Economic Literature, European Economic Review, International Economic Review, Journal of Regulatory Economics, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, Games and Economic Behavior, and Journal of Law, Economics and Organization.

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