Parking at and around downtown shopping malls

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1628618 (Table of Contents)

This thesis focuses on the parking behaviors of individuals at and around downtown shopping malls. I express a real life parking problem where a sequential game is played between the mall and individuals, and I model the problem. In the model, the mall decides the price of the good, the parking fee, and the capacity of the mall, then individuals decide to park either at the mall or the curbside. Individuals are determined endogenously according to their valuations of the good that the monopolist shopping mall has produced. I determined the equilibrium and also solved for the social optimum where a social planner controls the parking fee. I find that both the equilibrium and social optimum parking fees are positive. Moreover, the socially optimum parking fee is higher than the equilibrium parking fee.