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The research programme Markets & Organizations (M&O) within the Amsterdam School of Economics joins researchers interested in studying the effective functioning of markets and organisations.
Markets & Organizations

Broadly defined, the research programme on Markets & Organizations aims to improve our understanding of the working of markets and organisations in capturing the economic benefits from collective action and to identify as well as evaluate (policy) interventions that may improve market or organizational performance.

M&O

The programme unites the former Industrial Organization and Organizational Economics group with researchers affiliated with the Amsterdam Center for Law and Economics (ACLE), in particular those in the subdomain on Competition & Regulation, and researchers belonging the Amsterdam Center for Entrepreneurship (ACE), in particular those working in economics. The satellite organisations ACLE and ACE are much broader than their intersection with the M&O group.

Main strands of research

The field of Markets and Organizations is very broad. Given the nature of the constituent groups that make up the M&O section, research is centered around 4 different, but closely interrelated, strands of research:

  1. Industrial Organisation: the working of imperfectly competitive markets, in particular how firms compete with each other on such markets. The natural focus here is on oligopolies where firms have at least some market power. Topics of interest include pricing strategies, (tacit) collusion, locational choice, research and development, inter-firm relationships, market design, auctions, two-sided markets and network industries.
  2. Competition Policy & Regulation: the effects of policy interventions aimed at affecting market performance are studied. One focus is on economic analysis in competition policy and the design of regulation. Another area of research are enforcement tools that are at the disposal of the agencies, such as detection, fines and other sanctions, leniency programmes, and settlement.
  3. Organisational Economics: the effective internal functioning of organisations in capturing the benefits of collective action. Within economics, organisations can be viewed as a means of achieving the benefits of collective action in situations where the price system fails. The key focus is on problems that may arise from coordinating and motivating the members of an organisation to create economic value through superior organisational performance and to study potential remedies for these problems.
  4. Economics of Entrepreneurship: the role of entrepreneurship in the effective functioning of labour and financial markets. Entrepreneurs are often credited with innovating new products, discovering new markets, and displacing aging incumbents in a process of 'creative destruction'. Yet it is also recognised that if entrepreneurs face constraints in terms of human or financial capital, then these economic benefits might not be realised. This has prompted governments to devise public policy to encourage entrepreneurship. A key focus is on studying the choices, behaviour and performance of entrepreneurs and on whether and how government policy may be effective in fostering entrepreneurship.

Four projects, each with focus areas

A wide variety of topics and questions is studied within the M&O research programme, which by and large can be divided along the 4 different lines of research outlined above. Each of these can be can be further subdivided into a number of different research projects.

1. Industrial Organisation

2. Competition Policy & Regulation

3. Organisational Economics

4. Economics of Entrepreneurship

Methods

Within the M&O research programme, there is an emphasis on both sound empirical work and on applied theory.

  • Empirical analyses primarily focus on the detection and measurement of unbiased effects, either through the use of naturally occurring field data (by means of 'quasi experiments' and instrumental variables techniques), field experiments or laboratory experiments.
  • Applied theory typically concerns using the tools from microeconomics and applied game theory to evaluate the impact of either government policy or organisational interventions intended to improve efficiency. Often these models are enriched by incorporating insights from behavioural economics, as empirical evidence has mounted that people do not always satisfy the rationality assumptions made in traditional economic models.

Research within the M&O programme is always done with a keen eye towards societal relevance, ranging from competition policy, practical auction design in procurement, to the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education in stimulating entrepreneurial intentions.

Contact

If you have a question related to the Markets & Organizations programme, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Prof. dr. R. (Randolph) Sloof

Programme Director