Özlem Bedre-Defolie
Associate Professor of Economics, ESMT Berlin
Dr Özlem Bedre-Defolie is an Associate Professor (with tenure) of economics. Özlem joined ESMT Berlin in January 2010 as an assistant professor. She received her PhD in economics (with highest distinction) from the Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) in France and also holds an MSc in Economic Theory and Econometrics from TSE. Before moving to Toulouse, Özlem obtained a BA in Economics and a BSc in Mathematics from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey.
Before joining ESMT she spent a year in Paris as a postdoctoral research fellow at Ecole Polytechnique, Business Chair. During the first two years of her appointment at ESMT she worked as a part-time visiting scholar in the research department of the Financial Stability Wing of Norges Bank (the central bank of Norway).
Özlem’s research interests are mainly theoretical and applied microeconomics, and industrial organization. In particular, her research focusses on contracts and pricing strategies of platforms, estimation of end user demands in the payment card industry, implications of long-term contracts, multiproduct firm pricing and implications of buyer power in vertical relationships. Her research has been published in leading economics, marketing and industrial organization journals, including American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Theory, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Marketing Science, International Journal of Industrial Organization.
Özlem teaches two full-time MBA courses regularly: “Quantitative Methods” and “Competitive and Dynamic Pricing”. She also teaches industrial organization/management science II at the Berlin Doctoral Program in Economics and Management Science (BDPEMS).
-
- PhD in Economics, Toulouse School of Economics
- European Diploma, Toulouse School of Economics
- MSc in Economic Theory and Econometrics, Toulouse School of Economics
- BA in Economics, Boğaziçi University, Turkey
- BSc in Mathematics, Boğaziçi University, Turkey
-
- Papers & reports
When Do Markets Tip? An Overview and Some Insights for Policy
Find out in the latest research by Özlem Bedre Defolie, associate professor at ESMT Berlin, and Rainer Nitsche, director at E.CA Economics and research fellow at ESMT Berlin, published by the Journal of European Competition Law and Practice.
Competition authorities are increasingly concerned that their tools are not fit to deal with markets with digital multi-sided platforms (MSPs). These markets have a tendency to ‘tip’ in the sense that one MSP takes it all or dominates the market by far. Policy makers, including the EC, are currently considering various initiatives to prevent tipping in markets with MSPs. At least in Europe, general search markets have tipped for Google, and many social media markets have tipped for Facebook. Several regional platform markets, however, did not tip (e.g. real estate, music, video-on-demand streaming). This raises some interesting questions: Why don’t we have tipping in these markets? Might they tip? Should competition authorities and regulators follow a particular strategy to prevent tipping in markets at risk of tipping?
- Papers & reports
Economics of Payment Cards
, Özlem Bedre-Defolie, KONKURRENSVERKETS WORKING PAPER SERIES IN LAW AND ECONOMICS, WORKING PAPER 2015:1, January 2015- Papers & reports
Pricing payment cards
Özlem Bedre-Defolie, Emilio Calvano, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 5(3): 206–231, August 2013Payment card networks, such as Visa, require merchants’ banks to pay substantial “interchange” fees to cardholders’ banks, on a per transaction basis. This paper shows that a network’s
profi t-maximizing fee induces an ine fficient price structure, over-subsidizing card usage and over-taxing merchants.- Papers & reports
Vertical coordination through renegotiation
This paper analyzes the strategic use of bilateral supply contracts in sequential negotiations between one manufacturer and two differentiated retailers.