netrashetty
Netra Shetty
The Exxon Mobil Corporation, or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company,[3] and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Its headquarters are in Irving, Texas.
ExxonMobil is one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world, having been ranked either #1 or #2 for the past 5 years. However they are currently 6th according to Forbes Global 2000. Exxon Mobil's reserves were 72 billion oil-equivalent barrels at the end of 2007 and, at then (2007) rates of production, are expected to last over 14 years.[4] With 37 oil refineries in 21 countries constituting a combined daily refining capacity of 6.3 million barrels, Exxon Mobil is the largest refiner in the world,[5][6] a title that was also associated with Standard Oil since its incorporation in 1870.[7]
ExxonMobil is the largest of the six oil supermajors[8] with daily production of 3.921 million BOE (barrels of oil equivalent). In 2008, this was approximately 3% of world production, which is less than several of the largest state-owned petroleum companies.[9] When ranked by oil and gas reserves it is 14th in the world with less than 1% of the total
On average, I collected 46 responses per auction. For each respondent i and for each auction
t, I denote the respondentís valuation of the item by Xi;t
I denote the average of the .
responses in each auction by Vt
I denote the standard deviation of responses in each auction .
by SDt
: Summary statistics are presented in Table 1.
In Figure 1, auctions are ordered along the horizontal axis by increasing eBay price, Pt
.
The corresponding averages of survey responses, Vt
, are plotted for each auction as well.
The plot shows that Vt
is highly correlated with Pt
If prices are correlated with the value .
of the item, then this plot suggests that Vt
is likely to be correlated with the value of the
7Table 1: Summary statistics for survey on 222 auctions
Variable mean st. dev. min max
(831 respondents)
no. of responses/auction 46 6 25 65
average: Vt $666.43 $317.28 $101.48 $1,816.98
standard deviation: SDt 472.38 153.94 163.57 980.50
item. The correlation between Pt and Vt suggests that survey data can be used to measure
unobservable item values.
Possession of more or better information should lead auction participants to be more
certain about the value of the item, decreasing the standard deviation in their signals. I
examine items with similar Vt to see what my survey respondents considered to be high
and low dispersion items. Figures 2 and 3 show the complete auction description from an
item with Vhighsd = $313:81 and the auction description excluding picture for an item with
a similar Vt of Vlowsd = $290:23. The technical speciÖcations (speed of processor, RAM, CDROM, and hard drive capacity) of these computers are approximately the same, indicating
that the respondents valuations seem to account for hedonic characteristics. The Örst item
had SDhighsd = 505:23, while the second item had SDlowsd = 304:74 (the coe¢ cients of
variation are 1.61 and 1.05, respectively).
The survey seems to correctly distinguish between the informative and less informative
product descriptions. Note that the high-dispersion item lacks the level of detail of the
low-dispersion item. Both descriptions show pictures, but the low-dispersion description
includes a picture of the actual computer for sale, while the high-dispersion picture only shows
a similar computer. Presumably the high-dispersion computer does not include monitor,
keyboard, mouse, etc., but what is meant by ìSystemî is not made explicit. The lowdispersion seller states exactly what is still required.
The information that is dispersed with respect to the high-dispersion computer may take
the form of di§erent knowledge among auction participants about the similarity between the
computer for sale and the picture in the ad, or the quality of reclaimed computers generally.
The low-dispersion seller describes exactly how the computer does not work. Although this
áaw may lower the auction participantsíestimates of the value of the computer, participants
are more certain about that valuation. If the seller merely said ìThis computer does not
workîor didnít mention the áaw at all, information would be dispersed between those who
were familiar with the types of failures encountered with Hewlett-Packard computers and
those who were not. By revealing exactly what type of problem the computer possesses, the
seller was able to lower the dispersion of that information.
In a CV setting, rational bidders respond to information dispersion when constructing
their bids. Based on evidence that eBay PC auctions are CV and exhibit rational bidding
behavior (Yin 2005), we would expect Phighsd to be lower than Plowsd. Indeed, the high-
8Figure 1: eBay Prices Pt vs. Average of Survey Responses Vt
Auctions are ordered along the horizontal axis by increasing eBay price, Pt
The corresponding .
averages of survey responses, Vt
, are plotted for each auction as well. The correlation between Pt
and Vt suggests that survey data can be used to measure unobservable values of items.
ExxonMobil is one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world, having been ranked either #1 or #2 for the past 5 years. However they are currently 6th according to Forbes Global 2000. Exxon Mobil's reserves were 72 billion oil-equivalent barrels at the end of 2007 and, at then (2007) rates of production, are expected to last over 14 years.[4] With 37 oil refineries in 21 countries constituting a combined daily refining capacity of 6.3 million barrels, Exxon Mobil is the largest refiner in the world,[5][6] a title that was also associated with Standard Oil since its incorporation in 1870.[7]
ExxonMobil is the largest of the six oil supermajors[8] with daily production of 3.921 million BOE (barrels of oil equivalent). In 2008, this was approximately 3% of world production, which is less than several of the largest state-owned petroleum companies.[9] When ranked by oil and gas reserves it is 14th in the world with less than 1% of the total
On average, I collected 46 responses per auction. For each respondent i and for each auction
t, I denote the respondentís valuation of the item by Xi;t
I denote the average of the .
responses in each auction by Vt
I denote the standard deviation of responses in each auction .
by SDt
: Summary statistics are presented in Table 1.
In Figure 1, auctions are ordered along the horizontal axis by increasing eBay price, Pt
.
The corresponding averages of survey responses, Vt
, are plotted for each auction as well.
The plot shows that Vt
is highly correlated with Pt
If prices are correlated with the value .
of the item, then this plot suggests that Vt
is likely to be correlated with the value of the
7Table 1: Summary statistics for survey on 222 auctions
Variable mean st. dev. min max
(831 respondents)
no. of responses/auction 46 6 25 65
average: Vt $666.43 $317.28 $101.48 $1,816.98
standard deviation: SDt 472.38 153.94 163.57 980.50
item. The correlation between Pt and Vt suggests that survey data can be used to measure
unobservable item values.
Possession of more or better information should lead auction participants to be more
certain about the value of the item, decreasing the standard deviation in their signals. I
examine items with similar Vt to see what my survey respondents considered to be high
and low dispersion items. Figures 2 and 3 show the complete auction description from an
item with Vhighsd = $313:81 and the auction description excluding picture for an item with
a similar Vt of Vlowsd = $290:23. The technical speciÖcations (speed of processor, RAM, CDROM, and hard drive capacity) of these computers are approximately the same, indicating
that the respondents valuations seem to account for hedonic characteristics. The Örst item
had SDhighsd = 505:23, while the second item had SDlowsd = 304:74 (the coe¢ cients of
variation are 1.61 and 1.05, respectively).
The survey seems to correctly distinguish between the informative and less informative
product descriptions. Note that the high-dispersion item lacks the level of detail of the
low-dispersion item. Both descriptions show pictures, but the low-dispersion description
includes a picture of the actual computer for sale, while the high-dispersion picture only shows
a similar computer. Presumably the high-dispersion computer does not include monitor,
keyboard, mouse, etc., but what is meant by ìSystemî is not made explicit. The lowdispersion seller states exactly what is still required.
The information that is dispersed with respect to the high-dispersion computer may take
the form of di§erent knowledge among auction participants about the similarity between the
computer for sale and the picture in the ad, or the quality of reclaimed computers generally.
The low-dispersion seller describes exactly how the computer does not work. Although this
áaw may lower the auction participantsíestimates of the value of the computer, participants
are more certain about that valuation. If the seller merely said ìThis computer does not
workîor didnít mention the áaw at all, information would be dispersed between those who
were familiar with the types of failures encountered with Hewlett-Packard computers and
those who were not. By revealing exactly what type of problem the computer possesses, the
seller was able to lower the dispersion of that information.
In a CV setting, rational bidders respond to information dispersion when constructing
their bids. Based on evidence that eBay PC auctions are CV and exhibit rational bidding
behavior (Yin 2005), we would expect Phighsd to be lower than Plowsd. Indeed, the high-
8Figure 1: eBay Prices Pt vs. Average of Survey Responses Vt
Auctions are ordered along the horizontal axis by increasing eBay price, Pt
The corresponding .
averages of survey responses, Vt
, are plotted for each auction as well. The correlation between Pt
and Vt suggests that survey data can be used to measure unobservable values of items.