Biography:
Marc Ivaldi is professor of Economics at the Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) and at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Research Fellow at the Institut D’Economie Industrielle (IDEI), Industrial Organization Programme Director at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), member of the Economic Advisory Group on Competition Policy at the Directorate General for Competition (European Commission), and Chair of the Standing Committee on Research at the European Economic Association. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. He has served as Scientific Director of the Division of Social Sciences and Humanities at the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research. He specialises in Applied Industrial Organisation.
Current Research Initiative as part of the PEDL project:
Impact of Cartels in Low-Income Countries
Detecting cartels is a key issue for anti-trust authorities in developed countries, since cartels can cause welfare losses for consumers and purchasers of productive inputs. In developing countries cartels may be even more harmful, because the higher prices they generate can drastically affect the real income of the poor. Whether developing countries should devote more resources to enforcing competition law is, however, less clear. Implementation does, of course, require significant resources, which might be more productively spent for other purposes. The issue then is the impact of cartels on growth and welfare in developing countries. The present research project aims to carry out a quantitative assessment of economic effects of cartels on growth in developing countries. It will also provide the information necessary to assess the potential for competition law enforcement to contribute to economic development.
During the first phase of the research we will construct a database on hardcore cartels in selected developing countries. We will ask competition authorities in these countries to provide the basic micro and macro data necessary for to estimate cartel impact. Although these countries do not include many low income countries, the results will nevertheless be applicable to them and useful to their policymakers. For each country, the basic data set includes a list of major hardcore cartels for the period of 1995 to 2005, and for each cartel, data on prices and market shares of the colluding companies at least for one period of the cartel’s existence. We will administer the questionnaire with the support of UNCTAD through the Research Partnership Platform on Competition and Consumer Policies, which allows contacting the national authorities in charge of competition policy in order to collect the required data. In addition, we expect to acquire the database on cartels maintained by Professor Connor. This database is unique and will help us complement the data collected through the survey. We will use this data during the second phase to estimate the economic impact of each of the cartels. We will first calibrate the parameters of the cartelized market using a model of an oligopoly with differentiated products market where firms compete in prices. Estimates of the parameters for market supply and demand will allow us to simulate the hypothetical (counterfactual) competitive market conditions and compare it to the existing cartel. This will give us estimates of the welfare losses due to the higher prices and the shifts in sectoral production as a result of output restrictions. Summing across the cartels in a given country will give us an estimate of welfare losses relative to GDP.
Recent Publications:
Evaluation of the Risks of Collective Dominance in the Audit Industry in France, co-authors: O. Billard and S. Mitraille, European Competition Journal, Vol. 7, n° 2, August 2011, p. 349-378.
Implementation of Relevant Market Tests in Antitrust Policy: Application to Computer Servers, coauthor: S. Lorincz, The Review of Law & Economics, Vol. 7, Issue 1, 2011, p.31-73.
Análise Da Eficácia Da Defesa Da Concorrência, in Lucia Helena Salgado e Eduardo Fiuza Marcos (editors), Regulatórios no Brasil – Revendo o Papel do Estado apó a Crise Financeira, pp. 187-205, 2010.
A Merger in the Insurance Industry: much easier to measure unilateral effects than expected, coauthor:
C. Gollier, in Bruce Lyons (editor), Cases in European Competition Policy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
