My project investigates how digital platforms can exploit behavioral biases and how such practices affect market outcomes and regulation. It contributes to the emerging field of Behavioural Industrial Organization (BIO) by developing theoretical and experimental analyses tailored to digital markets.

Over the past two decades, BIO has integrated psychological regularities into industrial organization models, yielding new insights into product design and firm strategy. At the same time, digital markets have become central to the global economy. Platforms and big-tech firms increasingly shape economic and social interactions, often using interface design and personalization to influence user behavior. However, the BIO of digital markets remains underdeveloped.

Digital environments offer powerful tools for leveraging cognitive biases. Platform interfaces structure attention, choices, and social influence through design strategies often referred to as “dark patterns.” These practices operate through three main mechanisms: manipulating attention and salience via rankings and feeds; exploiting dynamic biases such as present bias through notifications and engagement loops; and leveraging social biases through metrics such as ratings or likes that trigger herding and social proof. Given the market power of large digital platforms, these strategies raise important concerns for consumer welfare and competition policy.

Regulators have begun to address these issues. The European Union has introduced a comprehensive framework including the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). These policies aim to curb manipulative interface design and protect consumers, while upcoming initiatives such as the Digital Fairness Act target unfair personalization and addictive design. Yet important conceptual and empirical gaps remain regarding how behavioral manipulation affects digital markets.

Overall, the thesis aims to advance the literature by developing a theoretical and empirical framework for understanding behavioral manipulation in digital markets and informing policies addressing platform power, data exploitation, and consumer protection.