Competition | Center for Economic Policy

Seminar, Lecture, Talk Lunchtime Brown-bag Seminars in Fall 2025 The Center for Economic Policy is organizing lunchtime brown-bag seminars in Spring term at LSK6045. It will be open to all faculty and students who want to attend. In the one-hour seminar, there will be a presentation by CEP research affiliates, postdoctoral fellow or HKUST PhD students, followed by a Q&A session. The schedule of the seminars in Fall term is as follows:

2025-09-30 ~ 2025-12-16
12:00pm - 1:00pm

Research Affiliate Yuk Fai FONG Director of the HKUST Center for Economic Policy
Associate Dean of Business and Management
Academic Director of HKUST EMBA Program
Professor, Department of Economics Prof. Yuk-fai Fong is Professor of Economics and Associate Dean at the HKUST Business School, overseeing the Bilingual HKUST EMBA Program and Executive Education. Prior to that, he was Professor of Economics, Professor of Management and Strategy, and Associate Dean (Taught Postgraduate) at the HKU Business School. Before returning to Hong Kong in 2011, he was Assistant Professor of Management and Strategy at Kellogg School of Management.

Research Affiliate Zhitao YIN Assistant Professor, Department of Information Systems, Business Statistics and Operations Management Zhitao is an Assistant Professor at the School of Business and Management, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research focuses on addressing the following three problems via econometrics as well as computational techniques (e.g., machine learning, natural language processing, network analysis) to provide evidence for the design of algorithmic, business, and policy interventions that can be implemented in the business and public sectors. (1) What are the risks that emerge when human delegate tasks to or collaborate with algorithm-based machines?

Conference, Symposium, Forum Asia Pacific Industrial Organization Conference 2023 The Asia Pacific Industrial Organization Conference (APIOC) 2023 will take place on December 15-17, 2023 by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Useful links Conference Program is available here. Time schedule is available here. Campus map is available here.

2023-12-15 ~ 2023-12-17
12:00am - 12:00am

Former Student Research Intern Jenny Chow Former Student Research Intern Jenny Chow is a year 3 student majoring in Economics and Finance and minoring in Sustainability. She is also interested in sustainable finance and ESG issues. She is currently assisting Prof. Alminas ZALDOKAS to work on Collusion and Innovation project.

Search Algorithm, Repetitive Information, and Sales on Online Platforms The CEP working paper “Search Algorithm, Repetitive Information, and Sales on Online Platforms” authored by our research affiliate Yangguang Huang(with Yu Xie) was published at International Journal of Industrial Organization on 15 February 2023.

Publications Resource Allocation Among Competing Innovators Many innovative products are designed to satisfy the demand of specific target consumers; thus, the innovators will inevitably compete with each other in the product market. This paper investigates how a profit-maximizing principal should properly allocate her limited resources to support the innovations of multiple potentially competing innovators. The study finds that, as the available resources increase, the optimal diversification of investment may first increase and then decrease. By Ying-Ju Chen, Pin Gao, Xiaoshuai Fan

Publications Agglomeration, Misallocation, and (the Lack of) Competition Industrial agglomeration policies may limit competition. This study develops, validates, and applies a novel approach for measuring competition based on the comovement of markups and market shares among firms in the same location and industry. Then this study develops a model of how this reduction in competition affects aggregate income. In this paper, the authors apply their approach to the well-known special economic zones (SEZs) of China. This paper estimates that firms in SEZs exhibit cooperative pricing almost three times as intensively as firms outside SEZs. By Yao Amber Li, Wyatt J. Brooks, Joseph P. Kaboski

Publications Indemnification, Monitoring, and Competition: Evidence from R&D Contracts This article examines the adoption of indemnification clauses in research and development (R&D) contracts, in which a firm commits to reimbursing its agent against liabilities and legal costs. Indemnification achieves efficient risk sharing but dilutes the agent’s incentives to take precautions. Such incentives may be restored if the firm offers contingent indemnification and monitors the agent’s activities. Additionally, tougher competition can motivate the firm and agent to take more aggressive R&D activities, which leads to higher liability risks. By Xinyu Hua, Di Guo , Kun Jiang

Former Student Research Intern Yuhan Ai Former Student Research Intern Ai Yuhan is a third-year undergraduate student majoring in Economics and Finance. She is currently assisting Prof. Huang Yangguang to investigate the industrial organization. Before joining CEP as a student research intern, she worked on a project studying products, supply chains, and finance in the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program.