Background
Allen, Bruce Templeton was born on January 27, 1938 in Oak Park, Illinois, United States. Son of William Hendry and Harriet (Iverson) Allen.
Allen, Bruce Templeton was born on January 27, 1938 in Oak Park, Illinois, United States. Son of William Hendry and Harriet (Iverson) Allen.
Bachelor of Arts De Pauw University, 1960. Master of Business Administration University Chicago, 1961. Doctor of Philosophy Cornell University, 1965.
Assistant Professor, Association Professor of Economics, Michigan State University, 1965-1971, 1971-1977. Professor of Economics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, United States of America, 1977-.
Some years ago, a department committee evaluating me for promotion characterised my work approximately as follows: ‘Allen is the author of a small number of articles, primarily econometric tests of existing hypotheses in industrial organization.’ This remains a description of my interests and the research that has followed them. My work has followed several of the last twenty years’ themes in industrial organisation: relations between market structure and such performance characteristics
as wage and productivity behaviour. Determinants, changes, and description of market structures.
Mergers and acquisitions of all types, and their antitrust treatment. A variety of topics in market behaviour, including tacit collusion, market foreclosure, reciprocity, and nonprice competition, as well as their antitrust treatment. And industrylevel research requiring and yielding an acquaintance with such industries as cement, petroleum products, turbine generators and nuclear power reactors.
When I left graduate school in 1965,1 had the strong opinion that market structure was the prime determinant of the behaviour of an industry’s firms, and that this in turn largely determined how a market performed.
Accordingly, a focus on structure and its apparent consequences marked most of my early work. However, this interest has shifted over the years to a greater concern with the behaviour and interaction of sellers. Similar market structures can support a richer variety of behavioural forms than I had suspected.
It is in this area that I find most of the analytical puzzles, particularly when seller conduct appears to be irreconcilable with any sort of profit maximisation. Since my major teaching consists of MBAlevel managerial economics instead of industrial organisation, this research interest dovetails helpfully with my work in the classroom.
Member American Economic Association, Industrial Organization Society.
Married Virginia Elizabeth Peterson, June 16, 1962. Children: Elizabeth Rachel, Catherine Grace.