Superstar Firms and Market Power: Welfare Consequences and Antitrust Implications

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K13681
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 07040:Economic policy-related
• Research Institution: Osaka University
• Principal Investigator: PAN LIJUN 大阪大学, 社会経済研究所, 招へい教員 (70784320)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: Market structure / Superstar firms / Firm heterogeneity / Merger

Outline of Final Research Achievements

1. I have published three papers in refereed journals. (1) The paper entitled "An Assignment Model with Local Constraints: Competitive Equilibrium and Ascending Auction" was published in Economics Letters in 2020;(2) The paper entitled "Competition among Large and Heterogeneous Small Firms" was published in Economics Letters in 2020; (3) The paper entitled "The Broker-Optimal Bilateral Trading Mechanisms with Linear Contracts" was published in Economics Letters in 2021.
2. I have published a discussion paper: "Horizontal Merger Analysis with Endogenous Product Range Choice," ISER Discussion Paper No. 1162, 2022.
3. Oral presentation in international conferences and workshops: (1) European Summer Meeting of Econometric Society, 2019, 8; (2) European Association of Research in Industrial Economics, 2019.8; (3) Asia-Pacific Industrial Organisation Conference, 2019.12, Tokyo, Japan； （4）European Summer Meeting of Econometric Society, 2021, 8.

Free Research Field

Industrial organization

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

Despite abundant empirical evidence, we are lacking in a comprehensive study on the market with superstar and small firms. I established a theoretical framework with firm heterogeneity and examined the impact of merger among superstar firms, which provided implications on antitrust policies.