Florian Ederer
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Florian Ederer | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Known for | Research on killer acquisitions and common ownership |
| Academic background | |
| Education | University of Oxford Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Industrial organization, competition policy, economics of innovation |
| Institutions | Boston University UCLA Anderson School of Management |
Florian Ederer is an economist and the Allen and Kelli Questrom Professor in Markets, Public Policy and Law at Boston University's Questrom School of Business. His research concerns innovation, competition policy, and the organization of firms.[1]
Education and career
[edit]Ederer received undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Oxford and a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before joining Boston University, he held faculty positions at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and the Yale School of Management.[1] In 2017, while teaching at Yale, he was included in Poets&Quants' list of 40 business school professors under the age of 40.[2]
Research
[edit]Innovation and acquisitions
[edit]With Colleen Cunningham and Song Ma, Ederer co-authored Killer Acquisitions, a study published in the Journal of Political Economy in 2021. Using pharmaceutical industry data, the authors found that acquired drug projects were less likely to be developed when they overlapped with the buyer's existing products. They estimated that 5.3–7.4% of acquisitions in their sample fit their definition of a "killer acquisition".[3][4] The Financial Times reported that the paper drew attention beyond pharmaceuticals, while noting that the study's data concerned that industry.[5]
In a 2023 paper with Bruno Pellegrino, Ederer examined changes in the routes by which venture capital-backed startups exit. The authors presented evidence that acquisitions had become more common relative to initial public offerings since the mid-1990s and argued that this shift may have contributed to increased market concentration. They described their evidence as suggestive.[6][7]
Ederer, Regina Seibel, and Timothy Simcoe examined patent and employment data associated with 1,200 startup acquisitions by major technology firms in a 2026 working paper. They reported little evidence of an overall decline in innovation after these acquisitions, while observing increased concentration of patents among firms that made repeated acquisitions. The paper's findings concern technology acquisitions rather than the pharmaceutical transactions studied in Killer Acquisitions.[8]
Common ownership
[edit]Ederer has studied common ownership, in which investors hold stakes in firms that compete with one another. In a 2023 paper with Miguel Antón, Mireia Giné, and Martin Schmalz, he examined whether common ownership affects competition through the incentives offered to company managers. The authors reported that managerial incentives were less closely tied to firm performance at companies with more common ownership.[9] The research attracted attention for its argument that the growth of common ownership by institutional investors could affect executive compensation incentives, because shareholders with stakes in competing firms may prefer managers to place less emphasis on outperforming industry rivals.[10]
In another paper, Ederer and Pellegrino modelled how overlapping ownership of competing companies could affect prices and consumer welfare in the United States. Their estimates depended on assumptions about how shareholders influence firms. Under the alternative assumptions examined in the paper, the authors estimated that the welfare loss attributed to common ownership in 2021 ranged from 3.5% to 13.2% of total surplus.[11]
A separate study with Antón, Giné, and Schmalz considered a possible benefit of common ownership: encouraging research when an innovation at one firm may also benefit others. The authors found that the relationship between common ownership and innovation varied according to how closely firms competed in product markets and how similar their technologies were.[12]
Behavioral and organizational economics
[edit]Ederer's earlier work includes a field experiment on financial decisions, conducted with Leonardo Bursztyn, Bruno Ferman, and Noam Yuchtman. The researchers found that both information about a peer's investment choice and knowledge that the peer owned an asset affected participants' decisions to invest.[13]
With Frédéric Schneider, he studied the effect of delays on trust and promise-keeping in a laboratory and online experiment. They found that communication increased cooperation in their experiment even when three weeks passed before participants made their subsequent decisions.[14]
Online discussion
[edit]In research with Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham and Kyle Jensen, Ederer investigated posts on the anonymous forum Economics Job Market Rumors. The researchers developed a method for associating many posts with the IP addresses from which they were submitted and reported that users included economists at universities, government institutions, and private-sector organizations.[15] Inside Higher Ed also reported on the study in 2023 and noted that it had not yet been peer-reviewed at that time.[16] In a separate 2025 paper, the three authors studied how links to news, academic work, and social media appeared in discussions on the forum.[17]
Awards
[edit]Ederer, Cunningham, and Ma received the 2022 Jerry S. Cohen Award for Antitrust Scholarship for Killer Acquisitions.[18] The paper also received the Best Paper on Competition Economics Prize from the Association of Competition Economics.[19] He received the award again in 2024 with Antón, Giné, and Schmalz for their paper on common ownership and managerial incentives.[20]
Ederer and Bruno Pellegrino received the Best Paper Award at the 2022 Econometric Society European Meeting for A Tale of Two Networks: Common Ownership and Product Market Rivalry.[19]
References
[edit]- 1 2 "Ederer, Florian | ECGI". www.ecgi.global. 2026-09-15. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ Carter, Andrea (2017-03-26). "2017 Best 40 Under 40 Professors: Florian Ederer, Yale SOM". Poets&Quants. Archived from the original on 2026-04-03. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ Cunningham, Colleen; Ederer, Florian; Ma, Song (2021). "Killer Acquisitions". Journal of Political Economy. 129 (3). The University of Chicago Press: 649–702. doi:10.1086/712506.
- ↑ Primack, Dan (May 25, 2018). "Study says pharma mergers result in fewer new medicines". Axios. Retrieved September 29, 2026.
- ↑ "Bridging the gap between business school research and policymaking". 2024-11-08. Archived from the original on 2025-01-24. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ Ederer, Florian; Pellegrino, Bruno (2023). "The Great Start-up Sellout and the Rise of Oligopoly". AEA Papers and Proceedings. 113: 274–278. doi:10.1257/pandp.20231024. ISSN 2574-0768.
- ↑ Becker, Sam (January 24, 2023). "IPOs decline as large companies gobble up more startups. That's bad for innovation". Fast Company. Retrieved September 29, 2026.
- ↑ Ederer, Florian; Seibel, Regina; Simcoe, Timothy (2026), Digital (Killer?) Acquisitions (Working Paper), Working Paper Series, National Bureau of Economic Research, doi:10.3386/w35762, 35762, retrieved 2026-09-29
- ↑ Antón, Miguel; Ederer, Florian; Giné, Mireia; Schmalz, Martin (2023), "Common Ownership, Competition, and Top Management Incentives", Journal of Political Economy, 131 (5): 1294–1355, doi:10.1086/722414
- ↑ Levine, Matt (July 11, 2016). "Executive Pay and Blood Trouble". Bloomberg. Retrieved September 29, 2026.
- ↑ Ederer, Florian; Pellegrino, Bruno (2026-05-01). "A Tale of Two Networks: Common Ownership and Product Market Rivalry". The Review of Economic Studies. 93 (3): 1746–1788. doi:10.1093/restud/rdaf057. ISSN 0034-6527.
- ↑ Antón, Miguel; Ederer, Florian; Giné, Mireia; Schmalz, Martin (2025). "Innovation: The Bright Side of Common Ownership?". Management Science. 71 (5). INFORMS: 3713–3733. doi:10.1287/mnsc.2024.04363. ISSN 0025-1909.
- ↑ Bursztyn, Leonardo; Ederer, Florian; Ferman, Bruno; Yuchtman, Noam (2014). "Understanding Mechanisms Underlying Peer Effects: Evidence From a Field Experiment on Financial Decisions". Econometrica. 82 (4): 1273–1301. doi:10.3982/ECTA11991. ISSN 1468-0262.
- ↑ Ederer, Florian; Schneider, Frédéric (2022). "Trust and Promises over Time". American Economic Journal: Microeconomics. 14 (3): 304–320. doi:10.1257/mic.20200049. ISSN 1945-7669.
- ↑ Rugaber, Christopher (July 20, 2023). "Economics website is filled with racist and sexist speech, some blame the nation's top universities". AP News. Associated Press. Retrieved September 29, 2026.
- ↑ Quinn, Ryan. "Researchers Say They Found IP Addresses for 'Anonymous' Econ Forum Posts". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- ↑ Ederer, Florian; Goldsmith-Pinkham, Paul; Jensen, Kyle (2025). "Anonymous Attention and Abuse". AEA Papers and Proceedings. 115: 188–194. doi:10.1257/pandp.20251048. ISSN 2574-0768.
- ↑ AAI (2022-05-31). "Jerry S. Cohen Award for Antitrust Scholarship: 2022 Winning Articles". American Antitrust Institute. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
- 1 2 "Annual Report of Awards to NBER Affiliates, Spring 2023". National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved September 29, 2026.
- ↑ Tse, Angela (2024-05-13). "AAI and Cohen Milstein Announce Winners of the 22nd Annual Jerry S. Cohen Award for Antitrust Scholarship". American Antitrust Institute. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
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