Massimo Motta (BSc Bocconi, Milan, 1987; PhD Louvain, 1991) is Research Professor at ICREA, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and Barcelona School of Economics, since 2010. He was Chief Economist at the European Commission in 2013-2016, where he coordinated the EC's economic analysis on antitrust, mergers and state aid. He was previously professor at Univ. Bologna (2007-2010), European University Institute, Florence (1998-2008) and UPF (1992-1998). His research is on industrial organization, and it has been published in the top international economic journals. He has written a book on Competition Policy: Theory and Practice (Cambridge, 2004) which is the standard reference on antitrust, and a (co-authored) book on Exclusionary Practices (Cambridge, 2018). He is Past President of the European Association of Researchers in Industrial Economics.

Massimo has been working on the market effects of business practices. In particular, he has been studying exclusionary practices - such as predation, rebates, exclusive contracts, tying, refusal to deal - that dominant firms may adopt to exclude rivals from the market; and the effects of mergers and acquisitions. His current research focuses on the conduct of the big digital platforms: with C Fumagalli and C Tarantino he has been studying the optimal policies for the acquisition of start-ups by big firms; with M Peitz, the policy aspects of "big tech mergers" in general; with S Shelegia, large firms' decisions not to allow access to their platforms, or to imitate products and applications of complementors, to avoid being challenged by them; and with A Penta, the market effects of online advertising auctions. With M Polo he also been studying the design of industrial policies in markets at risk of supply-chain disruption, and generally policies which favor economic resilience.