B1799 - INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

At the end of the course students get an understanding of how macroeconomic and industry conditions determine the evolution of the global economic environment by analyzing and understanding economic and industry data

Contenuti

This course introduces a series of topics related to firm strategies (in partucular pricing), that will later be recalled in the companion course of Behavioral Economics. Such topics will be analysed, here, through the lens of the mainstream economic theory. In the subsequent course, a parallel will be proposed tackling the same topics yet from a novel perspective, i.e.,combining elements of economics and psychology to understand how and why people behave when facing real world sistuatuons.

 

The course is stuctured around four main pillars:  

1. Basics of competition strategies

• Basics of game theory (strategic interaction and best response strategies)
• Price vs. quantity competition 
• Sequential games with strategic interaction
  

2. Sources of market power

• Horizontal prduct differentiation
• Vertical product differentiation
• Advertising strategies

3. Pricing strategies

• Price discrimination with observable consumer characteristics (group pricing)
• Price discrimination in the lack of observable consumer characteristics (menu pricing)

4. Information asymmetries

• Asymmetric information, moral hazard and adverse selection
• Pricing and advertising as signaling tools

Testi/Bibliografia

Slides and other teaching materials will be made available on virtuale.unibo.it at the very beginning of the course.

Textbook: Belleflamme, Paul, and Martin Peitz, “Industrial organization: markets and strategies”, Cambridge University Press, 2015. Chapters 3,4,5,6,8,9,12,13

Metodi didattici

Traditional lectures, in-class discussion, teamworks.

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

Written exam on the entire course syllabus, worth up to a maximum of 20 points towards the final grade (out of 30). The exam consists of a series of multiple-choice questions and one short open-ended question, which the student can choose between two proposed options.

For attending students, the remaining 10 points will be appointed based on the evaluation of their in-class participation, and a series of problem sets.

For non-attending students, the remaining 10 points will instead be appointed based additional questions to address in a sort of extended version of the final written exam.

The grade is graduated as follows:
<18 failed
18-23 sufficient
24-27 good
28-30 very good
30 e lode excellent

Note that to qualify as attending student, a minimum attendance rate of 70% is strictly required. 

 

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

All teaching materials will be uploaded on the course page on the Moodle platform (http://virtuale.unibo.it )

Office hours: by appointment (please contact the instructor by e-mail)

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Stefano Antonio Bolatto