Please register for this event under the link provided on the right. We will send the link to registered attendees 1 hour before the event starts. Please note that registration closes at 1:00pm on March 22.
Please note that this talk is part of the departmental colloquium series, featuring 2 talks, each 30 minutes long, between 2:00pm-3:00pm. The two talks may be swapped, so it is possible that this talk will start earlier, at 2:00pm.
ABSTRACT / Public debate about rising corporate power has intensified in recent years, heightened in part by the emergence of corporate giants in the tech industry, along with various studies reporting increased market concentration across the globe as institutional investors acquire shares in competing companies. Healthy competition among firms is the central tenet of a well-functioning market. The competitive pressure from other businesses and potential entrants leads firms to set prices that reflect marginal costs and produce quantities that maximize social welfare. When competition is reduced, firms gain market power and can command higher prices, reduce the quality of their products, or decrease innovation.
Structural links, which are formal agreements between companies, can affect the incentive and ability of firms to behave competitively. While there is substantial theoretical literature showing that certain structural links leads to competitive harm, empirical work has been limited. To a degree, this is due to the challenge of identifying and characterizing the complex interactions between firms.
We propose the use of temporal multiplex networks as a framework to study the relationship between structural links, bidding behavior, and competitive outcomes in public procurement markets. Our focus will lie on ownership overlaps, director interlocks, and joint bidding agreements as these structural links provide the possibility for firms to control or influence the behavior of their competitors, aside from providing a channel to transfer information that can enhance the stability of a collusive equilibrium in a market. Determining the characteristics of these temporal multiplex networks allows us to describe and understand the static and dynamic properties of corporate networks as well as the relationship between these properties and competition. Such an understanding should precede and guide discussions of policy responses to structural links.
BIO / Isabela’s background is in economics and industrial engineering. Before returning to academia, she worked in the public sector and as a consultant for international organizations. Her interests lie broadly in the study of corporate and trade networks and in competition policy. Her latest research involves looking into the structural links between firms in public procurement markets, and studying the relationship of these links with competitive behavior and outcomes.