Market concentration can affect society beyond markets. It can affect government regulations, choices by NGOs and nonprofits, media coverage, scientific research, innovation, culture, and politics. 

Thanks to the support of Columbia Business School and the newly-launched Center for Political Economy at Columbia World Projects, we are delighted to announce a scholarly meeting about the Non-Market Effects of Market Power organized by Bo Cowgill (Columbia), Dana Foarta (Stanford), Andrea Prat (Columbia) and Fiona Scott Morton (Yale).  

The conference will bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars seeking to understand how market concentration shapes outcomes beyond the traditional measures. The program for our 2023 gathering can be viewed here. 

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 organization).

• 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 organizations, 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 recognize 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). While we prefer full papers, we may dedicate a section of the conference for early stage work. Both theoretical and empirical research is welcome. We also welcome applications to policy, including those beyond traditional antitrust merger review. 

Our conference will take place over one-and-a-half days on May 2 and 3, 2024, at the new Columbia Business School campus, in New York City. There is no conference fee, and discounted hotel rooms will be available.

To submit a paper, please use the form below by January 10, 2024. 

https://non-market.org/submit

For more information, our homepage is: https://non-market.org/

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions:  

organizers@non-market.org

If you are interested in participating but do not have a paper to present, feel free to complete this form to express interest in attending: 

https://www.non-market.org/attend

To receive updates about the conference, add address at:

https://www.non-market.org/contact

Non-presenting audience participants and PhD students are welcome, but we ask you to register to help our planning.