This module provides students with an understanding of the theory of industrial organisation, alongside relevant empirical evidence and analysis of competition policy. The module applies concepts from microeconomic theory and game theory to help understand industrial structure, the theory of the firm and the behaviour of firms within industries. The main focus is on providing analytical tools to understand the working of imperfectly competitive markets.
The module covers topics related to how markets work, how agents (firms and consumers) interact in a market either strategically or otherwise and how environmental factors, from other firms to policy, affect the market and the participants. After initially considering different pricing strategies under monopoly, most of the module covers issues relating to oligopolistic markets, including product differentiation, advertising, collusion and mergers.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module students should be able to:
apply formal economic methods to analyse firm and industry behaviour;
demonstrate systematic knowledge and understanding of relevant concepts from
microeconomics and game theory and apply them to specified situations and problems;
critically appraise the operation of competition policy in advanced economies.