Essays in industrial organisation and auctions

Vega, Carlos Juan Paolo (2024) Essays in industrial organisation and auctions. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

This is a collection of three essays on industrial organisation and auctions involving pharmaceutical markets. The first chapter looks at markets in the Philippines affected by an actual acquisition that took place in 2019. Estimates suggest that a reduction in prices followed from the acquisition. Backing out marginal costs in the pre- and post-acquisition periods shows that the price reduction coincides with merger specific marginal cost efficiencies post-transaction of 2-3%. The next essay evaluates the effect of a procurement policy that imposes a dynamic bid cap on auction markets for essential medicines in the Philippines. Using a triple differences design, evidence indicates that the policy was moderately successful in reducing prices. Despite endogenous features, the mechanism led to a systematic reduction of prices by 11-15%. However, evidence also points to 1 in 3 auctions failing under the policy as well as possible policy manipulation. The last chapter investigates auction markets in a controlled laboratory setting. Performance of markets and bidder behavior using a dynamic bid cap is compared to the case without a bid cap. Even though the mechanism appears to be ill-suited from a theoretical perspective, the competition to win overwhelms the ability to manipulate the bid cap. Although transaction price outcomes are improved, bidder entry is severely affected, and failed auctions become far more likely with dynamic bid caps. Findings in the experiment are consistent with those of the reduced-form analysis of real-world auction data in the second essay.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
Depositing User:	Nicola Veasy
Date Deposited:	11 Jul 2024 09:57
Last Modified:	11 Jul 2024 09:57
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/95865
DOI:

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