Essays on Industrial Organization.

Abstract

This dissertation develops new methods to analyze firm behaviors and provides estimates and predictions that inform antitrust and innovation policies. The first chapter shows that horizontal merger policies may be tougher when taking into account a merger's effects on the composition of product offerings in addition to the merger's price effects. The second chapter quantifies and decomposes the effects of vertical integration. I show that the investment coordination effects are pro-innovation and dominate the price effects. The results suggest that vertical integration policies should fully consider the potentially positive dynamic implications of a vertical merger. Both chapters are empirical studies in the context of the US smartphone industry. The third chapter develops identification strategies for a general class of matching games and estimates the formation of investment relationships between venture capitalists and biomedical startups. The estimates show that unobservables may be as important as observables in determining which VC invests in which startup firm, and understanding these unobserved factors is important for innovation policies.