Matthew Backus is an expert in industrial organization, specializing in antitrust economics, digital markets, and policy. Professor Backus’s empirical analyses cover a range of topics, including conduct testing, online auctions, demand estimation, and bargaining dynamics.
Professor Backus developed, with coauthors, a methodology for conduct testing, which is about differentiating between theoretical models of firm behavior. His conduct testing framework has been used in the literature to examine allegations of algorithmic collusion, monopsony in labor markets, and pharmaceutical collusion, among various antitrust scenarios.
Professor Backus’s research spans an array of industries. He has examined digital markets, with a focus on bidding mechanisms, negotiation practices, and demand estimation in auction environments such as eBay. He has also analyzed demand estimation in markets that include ready-to-eat cereal and milk.
Professor Backus’s academic work has been published in top peer-reviewed journals, including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Management Science, and the Journal of Political Economy. Notably, he won the Paul Geroski Prize for Most Significant Policy Contribution from the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics (EARIE) for his Econometrica article on the relationship between productivity and competition. Professor Backus is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a research affiliate at the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
At Berkeley-Haas, Professor Backus teaches M.B.A. and graduate-level courses in antitrust, industrial organization, and economic analysis for business decision-making. Previously, he was a faculty member at Columbia University.
Prior to his academic career, Professor Backus worked at eBay Research Labs, where he developed substantial expertise in data analytics, online platforms, bidding strategies, and negotiation practices.