Jean-François “JF” Houde is an industrial organization economist and an expert on antitrust and competition issues. Professor Houde analyzes various issues pertinent to antitrust, including collusion and cartels, the competitive effects of vertical and horizontal mergers, and the influence of price controls and regulation on market outcomes.
Professor Houde also has extensive expertise in empirical methods used to detect and measure market power, to estimate substitution patterns in differentiated goods markets, to analyze the effects of search frictions, and to study the incidence and consequences of price discrimination. He has applied these methods across diverse sectors, including e-commerce, energy, finance, and retail.
Professor Houde has studied aspects of retail and e-commerce salient to antitrust. He has analyzed collusion in retail markets, including hub-and-spoke schemes. He has also analyzed the nexus between investments in distribution and logistics, economies of scale, and retailers’ cost structures.
Professor Houde has particular expertise at the intersection of antitrust and finance. In addition to authoring a series of research papers on competition in mortgage markets, he coauthored “The Industrial Organization of Financial Markets” in the Handbook of Industrial Organization, a widely cited reference book. In a consulting setting, he has analyzed the impact of private equity investment on competition in single-family housing markets.
Professor Houde’s research on negotiated-price markets has broad applications and is closely tied to models used in merger analysis.
Professor Houde’s research has been published in top economics journals, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Journal of Political Economy, the Rand Journal of Economics, the Journal of Industrial Economics, and the Review of Financial Studies. He is coeditor of the RAND Journal of Economics, a top publication in industrial organization economics, and has served on several editorial boards, including for the American Economic Review. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
At UW–Madison, Professor Houde has taught courses in industrial organization and econometrics. He previously served on the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Cornell University.