Academic Archive

Published Papers

William M Volckmann II. The effects of market size, wealth, and network effects on digital piracy and profit. European Journal of Law and Economics 55, no. 1 (2023): 61-85. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10657-022-09750-9, Full-text PDF

William M Volckmann II. A model of digital rights management with user disutility. Journal of Industrial and Management Optimization 20, no. 1 (2024): 59-83. https://doi.org/10.3934/jimo.2023069

William M Volckmann II. Consumer and critic reception of video game platforms: Trends from 2002–2022. Entertainment Computing 48 (2024), 100599. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.entcom.2023.100599

Brown, Gregory, and William M Volckmann II. Unpacking Private Equity Performance. Journal of Portfolio Management (2024). https://doi.org/10.3905/jpm.2024.1.604.

White Papers and Research Notes

Brown, Gregory, and William M Volckmann II. Is the US IPO Market About to Thaw? Institute for Private Capital Research Note (2024). Full-text PDF, Press, More Press

Brown, Gregory, Elyas Fermand, Wendy Hu, Richard Maxwell, and William M Volckmann II. Scale, Scope, and Speed in Private Capital Funds. Institute for Private Capital White Paper (2024). Full-text PDF

Brown, Gregory, Christian Lundblad, and William M Volckmann II. What Do We Know About Institutional-Quality Hedge Funds? Institute for Private Capital Research Note (2024). Full-text PDF

Working Papers

The Effect of Bypassing Denuvo DRM on PC Video Games

Abstract. In the personal computer video game market, a digital rights management (DRM) technology called Denuvo has been used since 2014 to restrict software usage to legitimate buyers, thereby preventing piracy. Sometimes Denuvo DRM is bypassed or “cracked”, after which the video game can be pirated. I exploit the randomness with which Denuvo DRM is cracked to estimate the effect that Denuvo DRM survival time has on protecting revenue from piracy displacement. When Denuvo DRM is cracked very early on, piracy leads to an estimated 25 percent fall in total revenue on average relative to an uncracked counterfactual, but that effect is weaker the longer it takes for Denuvo DRM to be cracked. When Denuvo DRM survives for at least 12 weeks, piracy leads to nearly zero total revenue loss on average. The results suggest that Denuvo DRM does protect legitimate sales to an estimated mean of 19 percent of total revenue and median of 21 percent, but there is little justification to employ Denuvo DRM long-term (i.e. for more than three months), especially given that Denuvo DRM can have negative technical side effects and is generally disliked by users.

Old Materials

I tend to write cheat sheets, formula sheets, and other useful (hopefully) materials. I archive some here for posterity (click below to expand).

ECN 101 - Intermediate Macro
ECN 102 - Analysis of Econ Data (Stata)
ECN 102 - Analysis of Econ Data (R)

When using interactive scripts, press Shift + Enter to proceed step-by-step; or click on Runtime -> Run all to run the entire script. It will give a warning but I can assure you that my R script will not steal your credit card information.

ECN 121 - Industrial Organization II
ECN 134 - Financial Economics
ECN 160B - International Macro
Miscellaneous Notes

Courses TAed

Teaching Evaluations, Overall Histogram

2021-2022
2020-2021
2019-2020
2018-2019
2017-2018
2016-2017