Universität Wien
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040108 UK Industrial Organization (BA) (2021W)

4.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 4 - Wirtschaftswissenschaften
Continuous assessment of course work
ON-SITE
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 50 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Tuesday 05.10. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 3 Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1 Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 12.10. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 3 Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1 Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 19.10. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 3 Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1 Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 09.11. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 3 Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1 Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 16.11. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal 3 Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1 Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 23.11. 13:15 - 14:45 Digital
  • Tuesday 30.11. 13:15 - 14:45 Digital
  • Tuesday 07.12. 13:15 - 14:45 Digital
  • Tuesday 14.12. 13:15 - 14:45 Digital
  • Tuesday 11.01. 13:15 - 14:45 Digital
  • Tuesday 18.01. 13:15 - 14:45 Digital
  • Tuesday 25.01. 13:15 - 14:45 Digital

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

Course Summary: After the required Microeconomics and Game Theory classes, students should be familiar with the functioning and properties of perfectly competitive markets, where market participants act as price takers, and with the basic monopoly model. The basic game theory course should have made students familiar with the basic tools to study strategic interaction, namely Nash equilibrium and subgame perfection.
The course starts with the basic models of imperfect competition (Cournot, Bertrand and Stackelberg). The present course takes a theoretic approach and studies how market participants are aware of the influence oftheir decisions on others, taking optimal advantage of their information about the market and their competitors. The resulting market equilibrium heavily depends on the prevailing market structure -- the number of competitors, the cost structure, the choice of strategic decision variables (output, quality, location and/or price), the order of moves (sequential vs. simultaneous), product characteristics (like number of competing products and degree of product substitutability). Moreover, firms can influence market structure through advertising, product positioning, as well as through their investment on technology improvements and also by merging with or acquiring other firms.
Contents: The recommended readings below give author's name and the sections orchapters in the corresponding book; e.g. Cabral: 2.2-2.4 refers to the sections between 2.2 and 2.4 in Cabral's book.

Format: The topics of the course will be presented by the lecturer. Problem sets will be distributed regularly through the course website. Some sessions will be devoted to the discussion of problems. Students are expected to read the material in advance so that there can be active interaction during the lectures. When problems are discussed, students are expected to have worked on the problem sets in advance. Students are expected to do there commended readings to complement classroom discussion of the topics.

Target group: Bachelor Students in Economics
Prerequisites: Microeconomics I (Mikroökonomie I) and Game Theory I (Spieltheorie I).

Assessment and permitted materials

Grading will be as follows. One midterm (35%) and final (45%) and two homeworks (20%). The homeworks you can make in groups of three. I will also give other homeworks that you do not have to hand in, for practice.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Examination topics

The recommended readings below give author's name and the sections orchapters in the corresponding book; e.g. Cabral: 2.2-2.4 refers to the sections between 2.2 and 2.4 in Cabral's book.

Course outline
Week Topic Literature
1 Introduction, Bertrand competition C1, C7.1; CW1
2 Bertrand competition, Horizontal Product Differentiation CW 8.3, C12, CW11
3 Horizontal and Vertical Product Differentiation C12, CW 11
4 Bertrand Competition with Capacity Constraints CW 14.1
5 Consumer Search and Advertising
6 Exercises and preparation for midterm
7 Midterm
8 Cournot, Stackelberg CW 8.2, 13.2
9 Entry and Exit I CW14.1, C 15
10 Mergers CW 23
11 Collusion CW 10
12 Vertical relations, foreclosure, Nonlinear Pricing CW22, C11, C10
13 Exam Preparation
14 Exam

Reading list

: [1] Cabral, L., 2000. Introduction to Industrial Organization, MIT Press.
[2] Church, J. and R. Ware. 2000. Industrial Organization. A Strategic Approach. McGraw-Hill.

Association in the course directory

Last modified: Fr 12.05.2023 00:12