EconS 594, Ph.D. Industrial Organization

  1. Syllabus – EconS 594, Fall 2021.
  2. Student presentations: Tentative schedule.
    1. October 5th, Suhina Deol, Baye and Morgan (2001), and Church and Gandal (1993).
    2. October 7th, Dane Franchi, Green and Scotchmer (1995) and Kamien et al. (1992).
    3. October 12th, Ilhoon Choi, Levin et al. (2009) and Baksi and Bose (2007).
    4. October 14th, Sahil Patil, Waltman and Kaymak (2008) and Calvano et al. (2021).
    5. October 20th, Sita Khanal, Delbono and Denicolo (1991) and Barcena and Garzon (2006).
    6. October 26th, Banguning Asgha, Fluet and Garella (2002) and Aguirre et al. (2010).
    7. October 28th, Yazeed Aldhafian, Lambertini et al. (2017) and Fikru and Gautier (2016).
    8. November 2nd, Putriesti Mandasari, Semenov and Todji (2019) and Delbono and Denicolo (1990).
    9. November 4th, Koroles Awad, Bounie et al. (2021) and Crandall and Winston (2003).
    10. November 8th, William Ottenheimer, Dery et al. (2021) and Greppi and Menicucci (2021).
  3. Slides:
    1. Chapter 3, Static imperfect competition.
      • Link to scanned chapter here.
      • Price competition with uncertain costs, Handout.
      • Strategic complementarities in oligopoly, Vives (2016). Link.
    2. Chapter 4, Dynamic imperfect competition.
    3. Chapter 5, Product differentiation.
      • Hotelling with quadratic transportation costs. Handout.
      • Vertical differentiation and natural monopoly, Handout.
    4. Chapter 6, Advertising.
      • Literature review (Handbook of Industrial Organization, Bagwell), Link.
    5. Chapter 8, Group and personalized pricing.
      • Liu and Serfes (2004). Link.
    6. Chapter 9, Menu pricing.
      • Menu pricing with two firms, Ellison (2005). Link.
      • Nonlinear pricing with two firms, Amstrong and Vickers (2001). Link.
    7. Chapter 14, Cartels and tacit collusion.
      • How do cartels operate? Harrington (2006), Link.
      • Theory of collusion and competition policy. Harrington, Link.
    8. Chapter 15, Horizontal mergers.
      • Mergers between several firms. Handout.
      • Mergers with synergies. Handout.
      • Cournot competition with n asymmetric firms, and mergers. Handout.
      • Can mergers facilitate collusion? Handout.
      • Horizontal mergers and antitrust policy (Handbook of Industrial Organization, Whinston), Link.
    9. Chapter 16, Strategic incumbents and entry.
      • Strategic pre-commitment, Link.
  4. Practice exercises in Industrial Organization: You can find more practice exercises in my book Industrial Organization: Practice Exercises with Answer Keys, with Pak-Sing Choi and Eric Dunaway. Link.
  5. Research and presentation resources:
    • Selecting a research topic:  Laibson (Harvard) and Pischke (LSE).
    • Advise on how to write an academic paper: Glaeser (Harvard) and Cochrane (Chicago).
    • Presentations and slides: Hansen (Wisconsin-Madison) and Davis (Columbia).
    • Short book “A Guide for the Young Economist,” MIT Press, Link.
  6. Homework assignments:
    1. Homework #1, answer key.
    2. Homework #2, answer key.