Best Paper by a Junior Author Award
This award is for outstanding research by a younger scholar, as published in the Review of Industrial Organization during the previous year and presented at the annual International Industrial Organization Conference.
To qualify, all of the authors must be less than ten years post-Ph.D. at the time of the publication. The selection is made by a rotating committee of three senior scholars.
2024 Recipient
Garrett Senney (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) and Jonathan Lhost (Lawrence University), for "Big Bids and Bidder Behavior in Uniform Price Auctions: Evidence from Peer-to-Peer Loan Markets"
Senney and Lhost's empirical paper studies the effect of big bids on uniform price auctions. In a uniform price auction such as peer-to-peer lending, the high bidders each win a share of the object being auctioned but pay a price equal to the first losing bid. This structure allows an individual bidder to create localized market power by placing a single "big" bid, which may influence subsequent bidders or deter potential bidders from entering the auction. Using detailed bid data in a large peer-to-peer loan market, this paper shows that auctions with a big bid receive fewer bids overall, but these loan requests are still more likely to get funded and to have higher interest rates. Further analysis suggests that this is not driven by subsequent bidders reacting to the identity of the big bidder or learning private information from the big bids. Rather, they respond to the bigness of the bid itself and play a mixed strategy of strategic herding. In particular, because some bidders avoid the listing with a big bid, the reduced intra-auction competition leads to less downward price pressure, and therefore lenders who enter can rationally bid higher interest rates. This interesting finding suggests that big bids can affect the revenue and efficiency of uniform price auctions. The prize committee believes that the results of this paper have important implications for the optimal design of such auctions.
Past Recipients
2023
Tim Wallrafen (University of Tübingen), Georgios Nalbantis (University of Tübingen), and Tim Pawlowski (University of Tübingen), for “Competition and Fan Substitution Between Professional Sports Leagues,” Review of Industrial Organization (2022) 61:21–43
2022
Lihi Dery (Ariel University), Dror Hermel (University of Toronto), and Artyom Jelnov (Ariel University), for “Cheating in Ranking Systems,” Review of Industrial Organization (2021) 58:303-320
2021
Kevin Bryan (University of Toronto) and Erik Hovenkamp (University of Southern California), for “Antitrust Limits on Startup Acquisitions,” Review of Industrial Organization (2020) 56:615-636
2020
Ana Georgina Marín (World Bank Group) and Rainer Schwabe (Cornerstone Research), for “Bank Competition and Financial Inclusion: Evidence from Mexico,” Review of Industrial Organization (2019) 55:257-285
2019
Taehwan Kim (University of Missouri), for “Price Competition and Market Segmentation in Retail Gasoline: New Evidence from South Korea,” Review of Industrial Organization (2018) 53:507-534
2018
Stephanie Lee (Stanford University), for “Does Bundling Decrease the Probability of Switching Telecommunication Service Providers?,” Review of Industrial Organization (2017) 50:303-322
2017
Andrew Smyth (Chapman University), for “Competition, Cost Innovation, and X-inefficiency in Experimental Markets,” Review of Industrial Organization (2016) 48:307-331
2016
Zhaozhao He (University of Kansas), for “Rivalry, Market Structure and Innovation: The Case of Mobile Banking,” Review of Industrial Organization (2015) 47:219-242
2015
Chris Doyle (RBB Economics) and Martijn A. Han (Institute for Economic Theory I), for “Cartelization Through Buyer Groups,” Review of Industrial Organization (2014) 44:255-275
2014
Maya Cohen-Meidan (Compass Lexecon), for “The Heterogeneous Effects of Trade Protection: A Study of US Antidumping Duties on Portland Cement,” Review of Industrial Organization (2013) 42:369-394
2013
İlke Onur (University of South Australia), Rasim Özcan (Turk Telekom), and Bedri Kamil Onur Taş (TOBB University of Economics and Technology), for “Public Procurement Auctions and Competition in Turkey,” Review of Industrial Organization (2012) 40:207-223
2012
Volodymyr Bilotkach (University of California, Irvine), for “Multimarket Contact and Intensity of Competition: Evidence from an Airline Merger,” Review of Industrial Organization (2011) 38:95-115
2011
Adam D. Rennhoff (Middle Tennessee State University), for “The Consequences of `Consideration Payments': Lessons from Radio Payola,” Review of Industrial Organization (2010) 36:133-147
2010
H. Evren Damar (State University of New York College at Brockport), for “Why Do Payday Lenders Enter Local Markets? Evidence from Oregon,” Review of Industrial Organization (2009) 34:173-191
2009
Marco A. Castaneda (Tulane University) and Dino Falaschetti (Florida State University), for “Does a Hospital’s Profit Status Affect Its Operational Scope?,” Review of Industrial Organization (2008) 33:129-159
2008
Mikhail S. Kouliavtsev (Philadelphia University), for “Measuring the Extent of Structural Remedy in Section 7 Settlements: Was the US DOJ Successful in the 1990s?,” Review of Industrial Organization (2007) 30:1-27
2007
Stéphane Caprice (University of Toulouse), for “Multilateral Vertical Contracting with an Alternative Supply: The Welfare Effects of a Ban on Price Discrimination,” Review of Industrial Organization (2006) 28:63-80
2006
Orietta Marsili (Erasmus University), for “Technology and the Size Distribution of Firms: Evidence from Dutch Manufacturing,” Review of Industrial Organization (2005) 27:303-328
2005
Helder Vasconcelos (Universitá Bocconi), for “Entry effects on cartel stability and the Joint Executive Committee,” Review of Industrial Organization (2004) 24:219-241
2004
Michael J. Mazzeo (Northwestern University), for “Competition and Service Quality in the U.S. Airline Industry,” Review of Industrial Organization (2003) 22:275-296
2003
Claudio A. J. Piga (University of Nottingham), for “Debt and Firms’ Relationships: The Italian Evidence,” Review of Industrial Organization (2002) 20:267-282
2002
Jozef Konings (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) and Patrick Paul Walsh (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), for “The Impact of Product Market Competition on Employment Determination in Unionised and Non-Unionised Firms: Firm Level Evidence for the U.K.,” Review of Industrial Organization (2000) 17:385-394
2001
In K. Lee (Samsung Economic Research Institute), for “Non-cooperative Tacit Collusion, Complementary Bidding and Incumbency Premium,” Review of Industrial Organization (1999) 15:115-134
2000
Philippe Cyrenne (University of Winnipeg), for “On Antitrust Enforcement and the Deterrence of Collusive Behaviour,” Review of Industrial Organization (1999) 14:257-272
1999
Rachel E. Goodhue (University of California at Davis), for “Sustaining Collusion Via a Fuzzy Trigger,” Review of Industrial Organization (1998) 13:333-345