Managerial Economics II

The Course will cover the following topics:

1. What is Competition Policy? An introduction.
2. Market power and welfare.
3. Horizontal agreements, collusion and enforcement of cartel laws.
4. Horizontal mergers.of

For each topic, the Course will discuss the major contributions of economic theory and some recent prominent anti-trust cases. The material we are going to deal with makes use of elementary game theory and simple oligopoly models.

The purpose of the Course of Managerial Economics II is to provide students with the conceptual framework and the economic tools to understand how and why market regulation, in particular competition law and policy, shapes managerial choices. At the end of the course students will have the ability to understand which conducts may challenge anti-trust intervention and will be able to interpret real-world competition policy cases.

In presence

The learning experience of this course includes, in addition to face-to-face lectures, the solution in class of Problem Sets assigned to students throughout the course. Those exercises allow students to apply the analytical tools illustrated during the course and to solve models of oligopolistic competition. Moreover stylized cases are proposed to students and discussed in class with the purpose of applying the models explained during the course to make the competitive assessment of a given market, to evaluate the effects of a given business practice or the implications of a given policy action. Students are encouraged to bring their own views and to share their insights.

A final exam will assess whether the students’ understanding of the topics discussed in class and, in particular, their ability to give an interpretation and a critical judgement to real-world cases. The final exam will consist of open questions, exercises and stylised cases to discuss.