Robert Somogyi's website

I work as an associate professor at the Finance Department of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, and as a senior research fellow at the Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungary. 

I completed my PhD in Economics at Ecole Polytechnique and CREST in 2016, after which I joined the CORE research center of Université catholique de Louvain for two years as a postdoctoral researcher.

My research interests are Microeconomic Theory, Industrial Organization of the Digital Economy, and Agent-based Computational Economics.

Email: somogyi.robert [at] gtk.bme.hu 

CV

Selected publications:

Deceptive Features on Platforms with Johannes Johnen, The Economic Journal, 2024.

Monopoly Pricing with Dual Capacity Constraints, Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 2024.

Generative AI and Deceptive News Consumption with Luca Sandrini, Economics Letters, 2023.

Competition with Capacity Uncertainty - Feasting on Leftovers with Gábor Virág and Wouter Vergote,
Games and Economic Behavior, 2023.

Optimal Capacity Sharing for Global Genomic Surveillance with Zsombor Méder, 2023, Epidemics.

Prioritization vs Zero-rating: Discrimination on the Internet, with Axel Gautier, 2020, International Journal of Industrial Organization.

Bertrand-Edgeworth Competition with Substantial Horizontal Product Differentiation, 2020, Mathematical Social Sciences.

 Work in progress:

         News Media Bargaining Codes (with Luca Sandrini, NET Institute Working Paper 22-06, won a NET Institute Summer Grant.)

 In this paper, we build a model of the news market where advertisers allocate their ads between a social media platform and a news website that is the content creator. Our main objective is to evaluate a policy intervention that aims to foster news creation by transferring revenues from social media to news websites. Such interventions, commonly referred to as news media bargaining codes, were first introduced in Australia in 2021 and are being implemented worldwide. We build on a novel trade-off between the higher advertising efficiency of social media and the value of content creation by news websites.  News content creation exerts a positive externality both on consumers and the social media platform. However, the advertiser fails to fully internalize this externality, generally implying a socially sub-optimal level of news creation.  When news quality is unaffected by the policy, we show that the policy intervention mandated by the bargaining code is always welfare-increasing as it results in additional news creation. When news quality is endogenous, we nuance our results by showing that a poorly designed transfer would not induce additional news creation. Notably, even such a  transfer would not harm consumers. Finally, we also provide some guidance on how to design the policy.

Deceptive Counterfeits and Consumer Protection (with  Johannes Johnen and Gianmarco Luu)

Deceptive counterfeits—fake products that consumers purchase unintentionally—are an increasing concern in e-commerce, posing financial and health risks. Particularly dangerous examples include counterfeit pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, electronics, and automotive parts. We develop a model in which some consumers mistakenly believe fake products are genuine. Our first contribution is to introduce a framework where some consumers are harmed by fakes directly through unintentional purchases—the first model to directly analyze how deceptive counterfeits harm consumers. The extent of unintentional purchases depends on the degree of competition between counterfeit products and the authentic brand. We analyze two enforcement strategies: prosecuting counterfeit sellers and providing authenticity aids. The effectiveness of these strategies depends on whether the brand competes for deceivable consumers. When a brand competes in this segment, both the brand and counterfeits offer the same price range. In such cases, authenticity aids can backfire—by shifting equilibrium prices, they may increase counterfeit purchases. Conversely, when a brand withdraws from competing for deceivable consumers—as in traditional counterfeit markets where fakes are more easily recognized—authenticity aids reduce counterfeit purchases. These findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between deceptive and non-deceptive counterfeits when designing effective anti-counterfeit policies. Finally, we study the incentives of a platform to fight deceptive fakes, arguing that more established platforms may have stronger incentives to protect consumers.

Nested Platforms (with Luca Sandrini)