prof. dr. JL Moraga Gonzalez

Full Professor, School of Business and Economics, Economics

, Tinbergen Institute

Personal information

José L. Moraga-González is Professor of Microeconomics in the Department of Economics at the School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is also a Research Fellow of the Tinbergen Institute, CEPR and CESifo, and is affiliated with the PPSRC at IESE Business School. He obtained his PhD in Economics from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in 1997. Before joining VU Amsterdam in 2011, he held academic positions at the University of Groningen, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the University of Copenhagen and IESE Business School. His work is in industrial organization and applied microeconomic theory, with a focus on how information frictions, platforms and market power shape competition and welfare.

Research

His research studies markets in which consumers and firms do not have perfect information or face frictions when finding trading partners, prices or products. This includes online and offline consumer markets where people search for products, digital platforms that connect buyers and sellers, advertising markets competing for consumer attention, and markets in which mergers, start-up acquisitions or regulation affect innovation and competition. A central question is how information frictions and platform design change prices, product quality, entry, investment and welfare, and what this implies for competition policy.

In more academic terms, his work is mainly in industrial organization, applied microeconomic theory and competition economics. Current research themes include consumer search and search-cost estimation; platform intermediation and two-sided markets; advertising and prominence; merger incentives and R&D portfolios; start-up acquisitions; and the regulation of digital services. Some of this work applies directly to digital platforms, online retail and differentiated-product markets, energy and natural gas markets, and automobile markets.

Teaching

His teaching profile covers microeconomics, industrial organization, game theory, information economics, regulation and competition policy. He has taught at bachelor, master, PhD, MBA and executive levels, both in economics programmes and in interdisciplinary settings. His teaching combines formal economic modelling with applications to markets, firms, platforms and policy.

He has also contributed to educational development and academic governance. He has coordinated field courses in microeconomics in the Tinbergen Institute PhD programme, served on the Tinbergen Institute Educational Board and Board of Directors, and acted as Placement Director of the Tinbergen Institute. He has supervised PhD students working on consumer search, competition, regulation, innovation and related topics.

Ancillary activities

ERCP | Zuidhorn | Directeur/eigenaar | 2021-01-01 - present
CREST/Telecom Paris | Paris | Scientific collaborator (Innovation & Regulation in Digital Services Chair) | 2025-09-01 - 2027-08-31

Ancillary activities are updated daily