The analysis of strategic interactions in markets and firms is at the core of this area of specialization of Labex MME-DII. Researchers study the interaction between firms in different types of markets, the interactions between firms and customers as well as the internal organization of firms. Many of these interactions are characterized by information deficiencies: information acquisition might be costly, one party might possess more information than the other, the actions of some parties might not be observable. Costly information acquisition is at the core of problems related to the adoption of new products and innovation. Researchers at Labex MME-DII try to identify the optimal experimentation and exploitation strategies when agents obtain imperfect information about each other’s actions and outcomes. The design of patent laws has to take into account such strategic considerations to set the right incentives for investment in R&D. The study and the design of optimal contracts and incentive schemes within the firm is a second important area of research at the Labex MME-DII. An interesting aspect of this research is putting the theory to the test in a laboratory experiment. A third domain is the analysis of the impact of informational asymmetries on market outcomes, specifically in the context of financial markets where financial analysts may choose whether or not to acquire and disclose information about the future performance of the assets. Finally, the analysis of specific market structures, such as, platform industries (e.g., smartphone or payment card industries) which are becoming more prevalent, is an area of growing interest.
Topics in Firms, Markets and Information:
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Researchers with interest in Firms, Markets and Information
Mehdi Ayouni (THEMA)
I am interested in game theoretical models of strategic acquisition and/or disclosure of information. Decision making is always based on information that is either acquired directly by the decision maker himself (possibly at a cost) or disclosed by other agents (whose interests are not necessarily aligned with the decision maker). Strategic interactions arise in these environments such as in the case of a policy maker getting advice from an expert, or auditors choosing which parts of a business to investigate.
Albert Bemmaor (CERESSEC)
My current works focuses on models of new-product adoption, the measurement of response error in surveys and the assessment of promotional activities on sales.
Giuseppe Berlingieri (CERESSEC)
Giuseppe Berlingieri is a trade economist and his research focuses on understanding the behavior of firms, in particular what drives their organization and how their choices in turn affect the allocation of economic resources and aggregate outcomes. In current research he investigates why firms have purchased more services over time and shows that this is a strategic response to reduce the complexity associated with an increase in internationalization. He also studied how outsourcing shapes sectoral reallocation in the long run, and the rise of the service sector in particular. Moreover he is interested in the role of services in international trade, and in global value chains in particular, looking at the role of services together with the transfer of other intangible assets in explaining why multinationals engage in foreign direct investment.
Gorkem Celik (CERESSEC)
I am an economic theorist with interest in Economics of Information and Contract Theory. I study what type of economic institutions and mechanisms are needed to achieve specific social objectives. My main focus is on settings where individuals hold relevant private information (such as the cost of providing a service or the value of using it), but are unwilling to reveal this information due to conflicting self-interests. I use game theory to understand how people react to different rules and norms under different information structures.
Gabriel Desgranges (THEMA)
My current research interests are the effects of information on equilibrium stability (informational asymmetries on financial markets, role of information produced by financial analysts, defaultable sovereign debt,…), most of the time from the viewpoint of the lack of common knowledge. I have also worked on the dynamics in general equilibrium models (sunspot rational expectations equilibrium in OLG models).
Anastasios Dosis (THEMA)
Anastasios Dosis is an economic theorist with a special interest in game theory and its applications in contract economics and mechanism design. His main research agenda has focused on the right game theoretic modeling of competitive markets with asymmetric information; one of the fundamental questions in information economics. He has also studied questions related to corporate taxation in financial markets with adverse selection frictions as well as the inefficiencies that may be caused in R&D races when there are informational externalities among the competing firms. Anastasios Dosis is also interested in financial market imperfections and the role of public policy to provide stability and correct inefficiencies. Lastly, he is interested in laying game theoretic foundations for why we usually observe contracts that are incomplete; e.g. they do not cover all possible contingencies in the future.
Beatrice Dumont (CEPN)
My topics of interests are related to: the interaction between competition policy and innovation, merger remedies, the efficiency of merger control; issues related to patent quality, patent litigation, efficiency of the innovation process. Econometric tools are used, as well as Bayesian modeling and real option models.
Victor Hiller (LEMMA)
My current research interests lie in the realm of human resources management practices and their evolution with a special focus on the motivation schemes set up by firms: supervision / pecuniary incentives / non-monetary incentives. I aim at analyzing how market conditions may shape the organizational choices made by firms and their feed-back effects on the development process. I am also interested in the co-evolution between these practices, on the one hand, and workers’ preferences or cultural values, on the other hand. In order to tackle this issue I plan to put together some elements of the cultural transmission literature with general equilibrium models where internal organization of firms is endogenized.
Strategic information revelation and bounded rationality
Karine Lamiraud (CERESSEC)
My research combines theoretical modeling and advanced applied econometrics. Areas of investigation include such various topics as the evaluation of therapeutic strategies, health insurance, health care consumption and costs.
Chantal Marlats (LEMMA)
I work on multi agent exploration/exploitation problems. I study the effects of observation constraints such as cost or delay.
Lucy Ménager (LEMMA)
With Chantal Marlats, we study strategic experimentation within bandit models. The general question we investigate is what happens when players cannot perfectly observe their opponents’ actions and outcome. In particular, we study a game in which observation is costly, and another one in which observation is free but delayed. I also work on strategic communication. In particular, I investigate the consequences of pre-play communication between bidders in a procurement game in which entry is costly.
Christina Pawlowitsch (LEMMA)
My field of research is game theory and evolutionary game theory, specifically with respect to the study of language, language evolution and language change, and strategic aspects of communication. I am interested in both, on the one hand, applications of game theory to these fields, and, on the other hand, the formal problems in game theory that emanate from these applications or are related to the concepts involved. In my previous work, I was focusing on methods of evolutionary game theory, exploring models of language evolution. In my current work, I am more concerned with strategic or pragmatic aspects of language, which necessitates the use of classic game-theoretic tools, like games of incomplete information with a dynamic, multi-stage, structure and the related solution concepts. This work revolves around one larger theme: forward induction and how people use language to impart and infer information along the play of a game.
Nona Pepito (CERESSEC)
My research explores the incentive effects of transparency in teams and the strategic disclosure of information in organizations.
Sarah Sandford (ESSEC)
I work on agency problems where principal and agents have conflicting social goals. Concretely I have worked on conflicts between donors and NGOs, and between bureaucrats and those who manage them. I also work on the effect of fixed costs in the charitable sector on the efficiency of the sector, using both theory and experimental approaches.
Said Souam (ECONOMIX)
My research tries to build bridges between different areas: law and economics, industrial organization and finance, development and society. My first interest is on industrial organization and how it can be used to analyze competition policy and more generally law. Moreover, I am also interested in the analysis of the link between financial decisions (mergers & acquisitions, toeholds) and real market decisions. My latest research on this topic deals with the impact of quorum rules on shareholders voting in firms’ general meetings.
Thomas Trégouët (THEMA)
I am an applied theorist. In the past years, I have been working on platform industries like, for instance, the smartphone or payment card industries. Specifically, I work on vertical mergers in platform industries, i.e. for instance a merger between an OS provider and a device manufacturer, and on the competitive effect of exclusive dealing in platform industries. I am also interested in the economics of marriage. I am studying marriages in the European nobility. This historical example provides interesting insights on institutions and rules governing marriages.
Radu Vranceanu (CERESSEC)
Radu Vranceanu has an interest in models with imperfect information as applied to financial crises, the labor market, the academic publication market, communication strategy, etc. He takes some of these research topics to the Lab, to analyze lying strategies, contagion in asset markets, team production, dynamic public good games, group decision, etc.