The Firms and Markets Department analyzes firms’ strategic behavior and its impact on efficiency, productivity, and growth as well as the institutional and political environment in which firms operate. With the aid of well-established empirical microeconomic tools, the department analyzes economic policy issues, aiming to produce robust data on and suitable tools for evaluating current economic policies. One of the department’s primary activities is assessing the impact of policy interventions on market outcomes in the fields of regulation, competition policy, and industrial and innovation policy.