Empirical and experimental evidence has mounted that people do not always comply with the assumptions of traditional economic models of 'optimal' behaviour. These anomalies gave rise to the ever growing subfield of behavioural economics. A next important avenue of research in behavioural economics is whether firms in specific market contexts can and do exploit the bounded rationality of consumers. For example, can firms sell more or soften competition by increasing the number of product that serves no purpose except for confusing buyers?

In current research, group members empirically investigate the use of gift certificates (VVV Cadeaubon) by Dutch consumers: Do people spend gift certificates they receive differently than they spend monetary gifts, and does it matter whether they received the certificate from friends or from their employer? In another project, a series of experiments will be set up to study the relationship between competition, the size of a loss and firm profits in insurance markets.

Research cooperation is key for businesses to successfully innovate and prosper, and firms increasingly rely on extensive networks to achieve their goals. It is, however, still poorly understood how these R&D cooperatives are formed, how they evolve, what their impact is on R&D activities, and what should constitute an optimal R&D policy.

These questions drive several research lines. For instance, group members are developing a theoretical framework of research network formation. This framework is tested against a database that includes all large research collaborations in the U.S. Other group members work on dynamic models of R&D, the novelty being here the application of bifurcation methods. This allows for a global analysis, including (transitory) parameter configurations that preclude single-stage equilibria. Yet other group members assess the welfare implications of sustaining R&D cooperatives. Again, the fundamental trade-off between static and dynamic efficiency is addressed, giving additional insights as to what should constitute an optimal R&D-stimulating policy.

In the past few decades, the study of auctions has become one of the most active research areas in economic sciences. We aim at answering questions such as: How to prevent cartel formation in auctions? What is the effect of limited liability on bidding behaviour? How to design auctions of multiple objects? What are optimal mechanisms in quasi-markets such as welfare-to-work markets and health care markets? What is the effect of license auctions on the performance of markets?

For example, groups members have studied experimentally the impact of leniency programmes on the collusive properties of different auction types. Others have studied fundraising mechanisms on charitable giving in a door-to-door fundraising field experiment. The starting point here is that people are not purely selfish because if they were they would donate nothing to charity.

Increasingly, economic analysis plays a decisive role in competition law enforcement. In competition cases, economic arguments in market definition, for example in two-sided markets, the theory of harm, or an efficiency defense can be decisive in the finding of an infringement and the design of remedies. Since business strategies constantly evolve, the thinking about their possible anticompetitive aspects is under constant development as well.

Topics studied in this research focus range from quantifying the efficiency defense in merger control and the identification of abuse of dominance strategies, to analysing the effects of State aid remedies and the calculation of cartel damages.

Since 2005, group members have collected detailed price information on the Dutch market for retail gasoline. With these data, the competitive effects of the governmental programme of auctioning licenses to operate gasoline sites at highways have been quantified. Currently, the data are used to develop an automated procedure to identify regional clusters of low price variation, an indicator of possible collusive practices. Other current empirical projects on competition policy deal with potential deterrence effects of merger policy tools, based on data from the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Furthermore, group members investigate whether firms that collaborate in research joint ventures, use these collaborations to collude in product markets. Also the impact of antitrust policy at large was investigated. This was done by further refining the methodologies to estimate price cost margins and by applying the methodology to data from the Indonesian economy. In addition to the nation-wide impact of the introduction of antitrust policy, also the change in the behaviour of targeted firms was investigated by a difference-in-difference method.

To enforce the competition laws, the agencies have a range of sophisticated tools at their disposal. Leniency programmes, for example, aim to destabilise collusion by incentivising cartel members to break out and report the cartel. Settlement procedures provide agencies with a short-track decision process, in return for a reduction in penalties. And the empowerment of victims of anticompetitive behaviour to recover the damages they sustained adds another layer of deterrence.

In this focus area, the interplay and effectiveness of these and other tools in the agencies tool box are studied. One important perspective is that they should be understood as a cat-and-mouse game. Another is the interaction between public and private enforcement.

Regulation is a wide area of government intervention in decision making that has effects on many dimensions. In this focus area, the effectiveness of different designs of economic regulation is studied. Public choice theories shed light on how regulation comes about in the interaction between various private interests. Where a certain aim for regulation is determined, for example access and price regulation on a specific network, economics has an important role in the creation of tools to make such regulation effective, such as Ramsey pricing or price capping. Existing regulation can be evaluated with frameworks for regulatory impact assessment, findings of which can help advise regulatory reform.

A key feature of organisational architecture is the division of tasks and responsibilities within organisations: who does and decides on what? Employees lower in the organisational chart typically have better knowledge to take operational decisions, but at the same time have objectives that (may) differ from the interests of the firm. Within this project the tradeoffs that arise in delegating decision authority, like a loss of control versus a loss of initiative, are studied. The focus is in particular on behavioural biases that may affect these trade-offs; especially when it comes to authority and monitoring non-monetary motives have been found to play a prominent role. Another topic concerns whether (procedural) preferences regarding the way in which decisions are taken affects how efficiently these taken decisions are subsequently implemented.

A second set of projects within the domain of Organisational Economics is concerned with the design of good performance measures and of appropriate reward systems. Performance measures are for instance evaluated empirically in terms of their noise and their distortions.

The research on reward systems focuses predominantly on (among other things) pay-for-performance contracts, career opportunities and promotions, returns to investments in skills acquisition and the interaction between explicit and implicit incentives. Here as well, a behavioural approach is typically taken, as people often care about how well they fare relative to others.

Are entrepreneurs born or made? And if entrepreneurs can be 'nurtured', what are the (human capital) factors that enhance the likelihood of (successful) entrepreneurship? Moreover, nowadays the majority of entrepreneurial ventures are started up by teams, rather than by single individuals. What is the effective composition of teams with broad and complex tasks such as is the case for ventures?

In our studies, we try to measure and understand the impact on selection and performance of, for instance, parental background, cognitive and non-cognitive skills, education, gender, ethnicity or role models for individuals and teams. Theories are tested empirically based on the results of 'quasi', field or laboratory experiments.

Public policy has increasingly proposed and implemented programmes to encourage entrepreneurship. Most of these programmes are designed to decrease human and financial capital constraints. We aim at measuring the causal effect of these programmes, with a focus on entrepreneurship education, on the intended outcomes by using field experiments.

This research aims to identify the defining behavioural traits of entrepreneurs and to establish to what extent these differ from managers.

The relevant traits studied include, among other things, attitudes towards risk and losses, overconfidence, willingness to compete and willingness to cooperate in a team. Established entrepreneurs and managers participate in online incentivised tasks designed to measure the relevant traits. We are building a database of entrepreneurs and managers that can be approached for this purpose bi-annually. Moreover, students in entrepreneurship and management are also included, as to determine whether the potential differences we find between entrepreneurs and managers are born or made.