Mitsuru Igami

• Economics
• Professor (Associate) at University of Toronto

This paper studies strategic industry dynamics of creative destruction in which firms and technologies experience turnover. Theories predict that cannibalization between existing and new products delays incumbents’ innovation, whereas preemptive motives accelerate it. Incumbents’ cost (dis)advantage relative to that of entrants would further reinfo...

How far should an industry be allowed to consolidate when competition and innovation are endogenous? We develop a stochastically alternating-move game of dynamic oligopoly and estimate it using data from the hard disk drive industry, in which a dozen global players consolidated into only three in the last 20 years. We find plateau-shaped equilibriu...

Do mergers help or hinder collusion? This paper studies the stability of the vitamin cartels in the 1990s and presents a repeated-games approach to quantify “coordinated effects” of a merger. We use data and direct evidence from American courts and European agencies to show the collusive incentive of the short-lived vitamin C cartel was likely to b...

We study how ownership affects productivity in the context of China's privatization of state‐owned enterprises (SOEs). Its true impact remains unclear and controversial, partly because the government selectively privatized or liquidated nonperforming SOEs. To address this selection problem, we augment the Gandhi–Navarro–Rivers nonparametric product...

We propose algorithms to detect "Edgeworth cycles," asymmetric price movements that have caused antitrust concerns in many countries. We formalize four existing methods and propose six new methods based on spectral analysis and machine learning. We evaluate their accuracy in station-level gasoline-price data from Western Australia, New South Wales,...

We propose algorithms to detect "Edgeworth cycles," asymmetric price movements that have caused antitrust concerns in many countries. We formalize four existing methods and propose six new methods based on spectral analysis and machine learning. We evaluate their accuracy in station-level gasoline-price data from Western Australia, New South Wales,...

This article clarifies the connections between certain algorithms to develop artificial intelligence (AI) and the econometrics of dynamic structural models, with concrete examples of three “game AIs.” Chess-playing Deep Blue is a calibrated value function, whereas shogi-playing Bonanza is an estimated value function via Rust’s (1987) nested fixed-p...

We assess the usefulness of patent statistics as an indicator of innovation, using a direct measure of innovation in the hard disk industry (1976–1998). Three findings emerge: (i) patents “predict” innovations better than a random guess, and a simple refinement makes them more useful; (ii) conditional on actually innovating, conglomerates and large...

Where do firms innovate? Mapping their locations in technological space is difficult, because it is high dimensional and unstructured. We address this issue by using a method in computational topology called the Mapper algorithm, which combines local clustering with global reconstruction. We apply this method to a panel of 333 major firms' patent p...

Why do some cartels survive for a decade but others collapse within a few years? We study one of the most prominent cases in recent history, the vitamin cartels, to quantify the member firms' incentives to collude. American court documents and European criminal investigation provide direct evidence on the cartels' organization as well as the leadin...

This paper studies strategic industry dynamics of creative destruction in which firms and technologies experience turnover. Theories predict cannibalization between existing and new products delays incumbents’ innovation, whereas preemptive motives accelerate it. Incumbents’ cost (dis)advantage relative to that of entrants would further reinforce t...

This paper uncovers a novel pattern of offshoring dynamics in a high-tech industry, and proposes a structural model to explain it. Specifically, the hard disk drive industry (1976–98) witnessed massive waves of entry, exit, and the relocation of manufacturing plants to low-cost countries, in which shakeouts occurred predominantly among home firms a...

We develop a dynamic entry model of multi-store oligopoly with heterogeneous markets, and estimate it using data on hamburger chains in Canada (1970–2005). Because more lucrative markets attract more entry, firms appear to favor the presence of more rivals. Thus unobserved heterogeneity across geographical markets creates an endogeneity problem and...

This paper studies the impact of international market structure on commodity prices. I use a standard oligopoly model and exploit historical variations in the struc-ture of the international coffee bean market in order to measure how successful a cartel treaty was and to assess its global welfare consequences. The results suggest that the Internati...

We assess the usefulness of patent statistics as an indicator of innovation using a direct measure of innovation in the hard disk industry (1976–98). Three findings emerge: (1) patents “predict” innovations better than a random guess, and a simple refinement makes them more useful; (2) conditional on innovating, conglomerates and larger firms paten...

We study cannibalization and preemption in the evolution of market structure. Because a market can accommodate only a finite number of products/outlets, forward-looking firms face the tradeoff between cannibalization and preemption. We develop a dynamic entry model of multi-product oligopoly, and estimate it using data on hamburger shops in Canada...

This paper studies offshoring (defined as a change in firms’ own production location from north to south) and market structure. I develop a model of dynamic oligopoly with offshoring, and estimate it using data from the hard disk industry. The results suggest the incentive to offshore increases as more rivals offshore due to competitive pressure. T...

This paper studies the impact of market power on international commodity prices. I use a standard oligopoly model and exploit historical variations in the structure of the international coffee bean market to assess the impact of a cartel treaty on coffee prices and its global welfare consequences. The results suggest the International Coffee Agreem...

This paper studies firms' decision to start offshore production. I construct a comprehensive panel dataset of 178 firms producing hard disk drives (HDDs) in the world between 1976 and 1998, which records contractual types ("make" or "buy"), destination countries, and the timing of offshoring as well as firms' organizational forms. I find that (1) o...

This paper measures the impact of the entry of large supermarkets on incumbents of various sizes. Contrary to the conventional notion that big stores drive small rivals out of the market, data from Tokyo in the 1990s show that large supermarkets’ entry induces the exit of existing large and medium-size competitors, but improves the survival rate of...

Why do incumbent firms innovate more slowly than entrants? This incumbent-entrant timing gap is the key to understanding the industry dynamics of "creative de-struction." Theories predict cannibalization between existing and new products delays incumbents' innovation, whereas preemptive motives accelerate it, and incumbents' cost (dis)advantage wou...