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In this article, we develop some of the economics of the intricate relationship between the demand and the supply of personalized data. We first focus on one heavily debated use of personal data: differential pricing (price discrimination). This allows us to highlight the role played by privacy protection, the impact on consumer welfare and the incentives of data brokers to share their data with firms competing on the product market, thereby articulating some of the forces that can influence the supply of and demand for digital personal data. We then touch upon broader questions regarding the supply and the demand for personal data and conclude by arguing that we are currently not yet in a world of ‘real’ data ‘markets’: personal data are transacted most of the time relying on hybrid contracts.

Environmental and social concerns have been rising continuously over the past decades and with them their importance for businesses and economies. Today, factors such as increasing resource risks, stricter regulatory environments as well as growing expectations in terms of sustainable product and service offerings or a socially and environmentally responsible conduct put companies in front of unprecedented challenges. At the same time, these challenges also hold unparalleled opportunities: by integrating sustainability considerations in their business strategies, companies may manage resource risks, comply with regulatory requirements and appeal to the expectations of their environmentally and socially conscious stakeholders. All of the latter may give rise to important competitive advantages, among other, by means of new growth opportunities, reputation gains or improved operational performance. Against this background, this thesis analyzes the strategic implications of social and environmental challenges and clarifies how companies may capture their business opportunities by integrating sustainability considerations in their operations. In particular: Chapter 1 addresses the topic of resource scarcity and analyzes its implications for the commercialization of process technology by means of licensing agreements; Chapter 2 focuses on firms' incentives for supporting the transition to a Circular Economy via the choice of their business model; Chapter 3 discusses final good producers' incentives and their ability to improve the social performance of their supply chains., (ECGE - Sciences économiques et de gestion) -- UCL, 2017

We propose a model of network formation in a Tullock contest. Agents first form their partnerships and then choose their investment in the contest. While a link improves the strength of an agent, it also improves the position of her rival. It is thus not obvious that they decide to cooperate. We characterize all pairwise equilibrium networks and find that the network formation process can act as a barrier to entry to the contest. We then analyze the impact of network formation on total surplus and find that a social planner can increase total surplus by creating more asymmetry between agents, as long as this does not reduce the number of participating agents. We show that barriers to entry may either hurt total surplus, as the winner of the prize does not exploit all the possible network benefits, or improve total surplus since less rent is dissipated when competition becomes less fierce. Finally, when networking acts as an endogenous barrier to entry, no pairwise equilibrium network is ecient.

This paper introduces a novel set of one-to-one matching problems: matchings subject to location restrictions. When scarcity of matching locations exists some agents may want to form a new partnership without being able to implement it. In this setting we develop two stability concepts, direct and (coalition) exchange* stability, akin to Gale Shapley stability and exchange stability (Alcalde, 1995) respectively. We show that coalition-exchange* stability is a refinement of direct stability. When no location scarcity exists then direct stability is equivalent to Gale Shapley stability and coalition-exchange* stability is equivalent to requiring both exchange stability and Gale Shapley stability. We partially characterize coalition-exchange* stable matchings through providing an interesting link between exchange* dominance and indirect dominance. Finally, we bridge recent developments in the computer science literature and economics literature on one-to-one matching problems by showing that deciding whether the farsighted core of an individually rational roommate problem exists is NP-complete.

This paper introduces a novel set of one-to-one matching problems: matchings subject to location restrictions. When scarcity of matching locations exists some agents may want to form a new partnership without being able to implement it. In this general setting we develop two stability concepts, direct and (coalition) exchange* stability, akin to Gale Shapley stability and exchange stability (Alcalde, 1995) respectively. We show that coalition-exchange* stability is a refinement of direct stability. When no location scarcity exists then direct stability is equivalent to Gale Shapley stability and coalition-exchange* stability is equivalent to requiring both exchange stability (Alcalde, 1995) and Gale Shapley stability. We show that the set of coalition-exchange* stable matchings is a superset of the farsighted core, and equal to the farsighted core if locations are not scarce and the matching problem is individually rational. The paper also shows that an exchange* stable set can not be a strict subset of a farsighted stable set and provides an example of a roommate problem in which no farsighted stable set exists while an exchange* stable set does exist. Finally, the paper obtains that deciding whether the farsighted core of an individually rational roommate problem exists is NP-complete.

We study the formation of bilateral agreements among rivals. All else equal, the payoff of an agent increases in his own number of partners and decreases in the number of partners of his rivals. We assume that agents are farsighted: they anticipate that their choice of partners may trigger reactions from their rivals. When more cooperation among equals is pro…table, and when the payoff of agents in a small clique increases in the size of the clique, a von-Neumann-Morgenstern farsighted stable set exists. The set contains either two-clique networks, or dominant group networks in which only connected agents are active competitors. Network formation may thus endogenously create a barrier to entry. If the sum of payoffs increases when the connections are more unequally distributed among rivals, the efficient networks are either nested split graphs, or have a core-periphery structure. The networks formed by farsighted rivals are not efficient. We show that standard economic models of network formation among rivals satisfy the above properties.

Solution concepts in social environments use either a direct or indirect dominance relationship, depending on whether it is assumed that agents are myopic or farsighted. Direct dominance implies indirect dominance, but not the reverse. Hence, the predicted outcomes when assuming myopic (direct) or farsighted (indirect) agents could be very different. In this paper, we characterize dominance invariant one-to-one matching problems when preferences are strict. That is, we obtain the conditions on preference profiles such that indirect dominance implies direct dominance in these problems and give them an intuitive interpretation. Whenever some of the conditions are not satisfied, it is important to understand whether the agents are myopic or farsighted in order to use the appropriate stability concept. Furthermore, we characterize dominance invariant one-to-one matching problems having a non-empty core. Finally, we show that, if the core of a dominance invariant one-to-one matching problem is not empty, it contains a unique matching, the dominance invariant stable matching, in which all agents who mutually top rank each other are matched to one another and all other agents remain unmatched.

Solution concepts in social environments use either a direct or indirect dom- inance relationship, depending on whether it is assumed that agents are myopic or farsighted. Direct dominance implies indirect dominance, but not the reverse. Hence, the predicted outcomes when assuming myopic (direct) or farsighted (in- direct) agents could be very di¤erent. In this paper, we characterize dominance invariant roommate problems when preferences are strict. That is, we obtain the conditions on preference pro…les such that indirect dominance implies direct domi- nance in roommate problems and give these an intuitive interpretation. Whenever some of the conditions are not satis…ed, it is important to know the kind of agents that are being investigated in order to use the appropriate stability concept. Further- more, we characterize dominance invariant roommate problems having a non-empty core. Finally, we show that, if the core of a dominance invariant roommate prob- lem is not empty, it contains a unique matching, the dominance invariant stable matching, in which all agents who mutually top rank each other are matched to one another and all other agents remain unmatched.

The goal of this thesis is to assess how the changes in universities’ autonomy, accountability and competition can influence the functioning and performance of higher education institutions and impact their stakeholders. It does so by applying industrial organization models to highlight some of the forces at stake between the different actors in higher education markets (higher education institutions, students, professors, administrators and governments). An introductory chapter provides the wider economic policy context with a specific focus on Europe and the United States. Key related theoretical works from the literature are also discussed. The thesis is then composed of three theoretical stand-alone papers related with this topic. The first chapter examines which market conditions favor the emergence of for-profit institutions in the higher education sector. The second chapter analyzes how a governance reform can impact the internal functioning and the performance of a higher education institution. The third chapter discusses how certain characteristics of higher education can impact a university’s choice of tuition fees (when universities are free to set their own fees)., () -- FUSL, 2013

We analyze collusion in an infinitely repeated version of a standard auction with a continuum of types. Because of the lack of efficiency results in this setting the litterature has focused on determining and comparing benchmarks on how well bidders can collude. Aoyagi (2003) has shown that the bidders can improve upon static bid rotation, making use of a dynamic bid rotation scheme, but this scheme does not allow to determine how much bidders can improve upon bid rotation. In this paper we design a very simple dynamic mechanism that improves upon static bid rotation and in the limit recovers one third of the gap between static bid rotation and efficiency, independently of the underlying distribution of values.

Different solution concepts (core, stable sets, largest consistent set, ...) can be defined using either a direct or an indirect dominance relation. Direct dominance implies indirect dominance, but not the reverse. Hence, the predicted outcomes when assuming myopic (direct) or farsighted (indirect) agents could be very different. In this paper, we characterize absolutely stable roommate problems when preferences are strict. That is, we obtain the conditions on preference profiles such that indirect dominance implies direct dominance in roommate problems. Furthermore, we characterize absolutely stable roommate problems having a non-empty core. Finally, we show that, if the core of an absolutely stable roommate problem is not empty, it contains a unique matching in which all agents who mutually top rank each other are matched to one another and all other agents remain unmatched.

We adopt the notion of vonNeumann–Morgenstern (vNM) farsightedly stable sets to determine which matchings are possibly stable when agents are farsighted in one-to-one matching problems. We provide the characterization of vNMfarsightedly stable sets: a set of matchings is a vNM farsightedly stable set if and only if it is a singleton subset of the core. Thus, contrary to the vNM (myopically) stable sets (Ehlers 2007), vNM farsightedly stable sets cannot include matchings that are not in the core. Moreover, we show that our main result is robust to many-to-one matching problems with substitutable preferences: a set of matchings is a vNM farsightedly stable set if and only if it is a singleton set and its element is in the strong core.

In a setting of R&D competition, we study how collaboration affects strategic decisions during a patent contest, and how the latter influences the collaboration network structures the firms can form. We use an all pay auction approach to endogenize both network formation and R&D intensities, and to take heterogeneous and private valuations for patents into account. We find that the complete network is not always the only pairwise stable one. The other stable networks have the realistic property that some firms drop out of the contest. Thus, 'weak' cooperation can serve as a barrier to entry on the market for innovation.

When selling their products domestically or internationally, firms rely on more than just price as a strategic variable. They also rely on non-price instruments such as advertising and/or R&D investments. Any trade policy that affects or limits the use of one variable will likely have strategic consequences for the use of all the others. Using a Hotelling model with vertical differentiation we focus on how trade policy barriers alter price and non-price competition on the goods market. The main results are as follows: first, no matter whether the trade restriction (tariff) is placed on the non-price instrument or on the good itself, the foreign (domestic) firm prefers to increase (decrease) its use of its pricing tool and give up some of (increase) its use of the non-price instrument. Second, in the presence of a non-price instrument, tariffs do not always lead both firms to increase their price: it can lead the foreign firm to decrease its (final) price.

We adopt the notion of von Neumann-Morgenstern farsightedly stable sets to predict which matchings are possibly stable when agents are farsighted in one-to-one matching problems. We provide the characterization of von Neumann-Morgenstern farsightedly stable sets: a set of matchings is a von Neumann-Morgenstern farsightedly stable set if and only if it is a singleton set and its element is a corewise stable matching. Thus, contrary to the von Neumann-Morgenstern (myopically) stable sets, von Neumann-Morgenstern farsightedly stable sets cannot include matchings that are not corewise stable ones. Moreover, we show that our main result is robust to many-to-one matching problems with responsive preferences.

This paper analyzes the role of retaliation in trade agreements. It shows that, in the presence of private information, retaliation can always be used to increase the welfare derived from such agreements by the participating governments. In particular, it is shown that retaliation is a necessary feature of any efficient equilibrium. We argue that retaliation would not be necessary if governments could resort to international transfers or export subsidies to compensate for terms-of-trade externalities. Within the current world trading system, though, in which transfers are seldom observed whereas export subsidies are prohibited, the use of the remaining trade instruments in a retaliatory fashion might be optimal. The model is used to interpret the retaliatory use of antidumping observed in the last decades, and the proliferation of these measures relative to other trade remedies.

This paper analyzes the role of retaliation in trade agreements. It shows that, in the presence of private information, relatialtion can always be used to increase the welfare derived from such agreements by the participating governments. In particular, it is shown that retaliation is a necessary feature of any efficient equilibrium. We argue that retaliation would not be necessary if governments could resort to international transfers or export subsidies to compensate for terms-of-trade externalities. Within the current world trading system, though, in which transfers are seldom observed whereas export subsidies are prohibited, the use of the remaining trade instruments in a retaliatory fahsion might be optimal. The model is used to interpret the increase in the retaliatory use of antidumping duties observed over the last decades.