Conference on Non-Market Effects of Market Power 2023 | CEPR - Centre for Economic Policy Research | 13 April 2023 | TBA, United States

The conference will bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars seeking to understand how market concentration shapes outcomes beyond the traditional measures.

The scope of this meeting includes, but is not limited to, topics such as:

• The effect of market concentration on the political and regulatory process (e.g., joint models of political economy and industrial organisation).
• Political and legal determinants of non-competitive markets.
• Non-market synergies between merging companies, and non-market returns to scale. Interactions between market and non-market aspects of firm strategy.
• Resilience, systemic risk, monoculture, and other connections between concentration and stability, defense, and security.
• Monopsony in labor markets and other effects of concentration on other nontraditional input or output markets.
• Effects of market concentration on scientific research, journalism and media coverage, culture, think tanks, and thought leadership.
• Supply-chains and market concentration.
• The effect of concentration on standard-setting bodies, professional organisations, NGOs, nonprofits, corporate philanthropy, and/or other parts of civic infrastructure.
• The relationship between market concentration and unions and other worker groups.
• The impact on entrepreneurship and the direction (and ambition) of innovation.
• We are especially interested in papers that study the effects of concentration that flow through important but understudied channels.

While the conference theme is "non-market," many of the topics above can be studied within the existing paradigms of law, economics, political science, strategic management, and related fields. These and other disciplines often recognise that market forces appear in settings without explicit prices, and that market and non-market forces often interact.

Our goal is to develop a larger body of research on this topic (including both methods and substantive results). Both theoretical and empirical research is welcome. We also welcome applications to policy, including those beyond traditional antitrust merger review.