Incomplete Information Models for Industrial Organisation. Mergers, acquisitions, and collusive conduct take place in imperfectly competitive environments where firms have incomplete information about others. Despite this, standard workhorse models for analyzing the associated competitive effects assume that firms have complete information and typically only accommodate imperfect competition on one side of the market. This project aims to remedy this deficiency by developing the economic theory ....Incomplete Information Models for Industrial Organisation. Mergers, acquisitions, and collusive conduct take place in imperfectly competitive environments where firms have incomplete information about others. Despite this, standard workhorse models for analyzing the associated competitive effects assume that firms have complete information and typically only accommodate imperfect competition on one side of the market. This project aims to remedy this deficiency by developing the economic theory and associated practical tools for the analysis of competitive effects in settings with incomplete information and market power on both sides. The project work will be presented at seminars and workshops around the globe to both academic audiences and to practitioners at competition authorities. Read moreRead less
Price Transparency, Search, and Collusion in Markets. Online search platforms and 'open data' policies are emerging to empower consumers with price information for decision-making in markets, yet also can enable collusive pricing. This project aims to study the competitive impact of search platforms by combining large, real-time datasets on firm pricing and consumer search with natural and field experiments. The project expects to facilitate the development of new models of collusion, consumer s ....Price Transparency, Search, and Collusion in Markets. Online search platforms and 'open data' policies are emerging to empower consumers with price information for decision-making in markets, yet also can enable collusive pricing. This project aims to study the competitive impact of search platforms by combining large, real-time datasets on firm pricing and consumer search with natural and field experiments. The project expects to facilitate the development of new models of collusion, consumer search, and platform adoption. This should yield substantial benefit by modernizing competition policy for the digital age through novel data-driven screens for collusion, and policies to encourage platform adoption and enable consumers’ use of data in decision-making to increase competition in markets.Read moreRead less
Big data: implications for competition, privacy and regulation. This project aims to provide economic analyses of the costs and benefits of business strategies driven by consumer data, while considering consumers’ privacy concerns. This is highly relevant and timely given the vast amount of consumer data collected, shared and used in the digital era. Expected outcomes include better understanding of how data may lead to market power and how to safeguard against abuse of market power and privacy ....Big data: implications for competition, privacy and regulation. This project aims to provide economic analyses of the costs and benefits of business strategies driven by consumer data, while considering consumers’ privacy concerns. This is highly relevant and timely given the vast amount of consumer data collected, shared and used in the digital era. Expected outcomes include better understanding of how data may lead to market power and how to safeguard against abuse of market power and privacy breach. This project should make significant contributions to the nascent academic research and policy discussions in this area. This should also place Australia at the forefront of international scientific community and policy circle on the regulation of data-driven business strategies and privacy regulation. Read moreRead less
Transport and productivity, a study on Australia's largest trading partner. This project aims to study how transport infrastructure supports innovations, productivity gains, and industrial development. This project will study the effects of this development on productivity and resource allocation in the manufacturing sector, output and efficiency growth, and the spatial allocation of capital and labour inputs. The project expects to build a geospatial database covering China's full transportatio ....Transport and productivity, a study on Australia's largest trading partner. This project aims to study how transport infrastructure supports innovations, productivity gains, and industrial development. This project will study the effects of this development on productivity and resource allocation in the manufacturing sector, output and efficiency growth, and the spatial allocation of capital and labour inputs. The project expects to build a geospatial database covering China's full transportation network from 1993-2014, merge this database with manufacturing plants’ longitudinal data, and apply (quasi)-natural experiments for analyses. Knowledge derived from this project will be significant for Australia because China’s productivity, resource allocation, and competitive advantage directly impact Australia’s industrial development, employment and sustainable economic growth.Read moreRead less
Price-Setting Rules and Allocative Efficiency in Oligopolies. This project aims to investigate under which circumstances restrictions on how often firms can change prices increase competition in an oligopoly and bring down prices. For this, we propose the use of laboratory experiments with a novel design followed by field experiments and a real price-data analysis for external validation. This study will result in both the advancement of theory describing how firms compete in dynamic oligopolies ....Price-Setting Rules and Allocative Efficiency in Oligopolies. This project aims to investigate under which circumstances restrictions on how often firms can change prices increase competition in an oligopoly and bring down prices. For this, we propose the use of laboratory experiments with a novel design followed by field experiments and a real price-data analysis for external validation. This study will result in both the advancement of theory describing how firms compete in dynamic oligopolies and practical policy advice on how price setting rules can be used to improve consumer welfare. This project has the potential to generate sizable benefits to Australian consumers, as the resulting policy advice would be applicable to large markets such as those for petrol, groceries and online retail.Read moreRead less
Optimal prize structures in the innovation context. This project aims to study the optimal prize structures in innovation contests. Innovation contests spur innovation for governments, not-for-profit organizations and firms, but the optimal design of innovation contests is a problem. Innovation is important in economic growth and firm competitiveness, but the 2015 Australian Innovation System Report identifies Australia as a mediocre innovator amongst the OECD countries. This project will use an ....Optimal prize structures in the innovation context. This project aims to study the optimal prize structures in innovation contests. Innovation contests spur innovation for governments, not-for-profit organizations and firms, but the optimal design of innovation contests is a problem. Innovation is important in economic growth and firm competitiveness, but the 2015 Australian Innovation System Report identifies Australia as a mediocre innovator amongst the OECD countries. This project will use an ideas-based innovation model to distinguish between easy and difficult challenges based on the availability of good ideas. The results should be important for effective incentivising of innovation through contests.Read moreRead less
Small firms' finances: effects on employment, wages and growth. The project aims to estimate how difficulties in accessing financial and credit markets affect small and medium enterprise (SME) decisions about employment, wages, entry and exit. Although the SME sector is Australia’s largest employer, the extent to which financial constraints affect these firms' market performance and their ability to create and sustain employment is unknown. The project plans to use an econometric analysis of fir ....Small firms' finances: effects on employment, wages and growth. The project aims to estimate how difficulties in accessing financial and credit markets affect small and medium enterprise (SME) decisions about employment, wages, entry and exit. Although the SME sector is Australia’s largest employer, the extent to which financial constraints affect these firms' market performance and their ability to create and sustain employment is unknown. The project plans to use an econometric analysis of firm level panel data to fill this gap. The intended outcome is micro-econometric findings tailored to improve targeted labour and financial policy. The expected benefit is to provide input to policy responses that support employment, productivity and wages in volatile market conditions.Read moreRead less