Essays on industrial organization

Abstract

This thesis comprises three chapters addressing different research questions on industrial organization inspired and motivated by real-world issues in the organization of science, the innovation process, and the consequences on the market competition of the presence of consumers with non-standard preferences. In the first chapter, I study industry-science alliances, using the partnership between pharmaceutical companies and academics as a motivating example. I study industry-science matching and intuition, using the partnership between pharmaceutical companies and academics as a motivating example. The second chapter considers the consumers' non-standard preference because they may experience regret. This second chapter analyzes price formation, purchase decisions, and how, when, and which firms may profit from consumers' anticipated regret. The analysis allows discussing the consequences of regret on the market equilibrium and when firms would prefer to remind consumers about their potential regret. The last chapter of my thesis is joint work with Albert Banal-Estañol, Inés Macho-Stadler, and David Pérez-Castrillo, where we empirically study whether the characteristics of grant-evaluation panels affect the applicants' likelihood of obtaining funding. In particular, we are especially interested in studying if particular types of panels favor particular types of applicants (similar-to-me effects). The chapters of my thesis do not have a common topic or a common methodology. The first two chapters are theoretical, while the third is empirical. As for the topic, the first and the last chapter are related to science and innovation, while the second considers market competition and price formation. Moreover, the first chapter considers standards preferences, while the second and the third include behavioral preferences (regret and similar-to-me effects). These characteristics of my thesis represent my aspiration to understand different industrial organization issues, my interest in theoretical and empirical approaches, and my belief that non-standard preferences may help to understand some of the stylized facts we observe.