12414 - ECONOMIA DELLE IMPRESE

Academic Year 2022/2023

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Politics Administration and Organization (cod. 9085)

Learning outcomes

This new exam in a MA degree like PAO is motivated by the need to answer many curiosities that involve the business world in the current public debate. The purpose would be to explain these topics without using analytical/mathematical tools that often drive students away from investigating this type of economic process.

By the end of the course, the student will be able to understand the interrelationships between the behaviors of firms and various market structures and their consequential effects.

Those who have the opportunity to follow the lessons will also be able to evaluate public policies - with a particular focus on the protection of competition and regulation - used to improve the operation of markets.

The main objective will thus be to learn how to analyze how firms behave and their ability to react to any unexpected shocks that increasingly change the circumstances in which firms operate every day.

We will respond (at least partially) to the day-to-day issues that firms face by trying to explain a range of phenomena or choices of aggregations through the continued use of case studies and the support of recent estimations proposed in the literature in recent years.

Course contents

The proposed syllabus is a preview for guidance with the idea to draw some simple guidelines ONLY based on the book. Additional materials will be provided in due time.

This is a first-year experiment of a new business economics exam after the reform of PAO. We will choose the precise programs to develop based on the needs that emerged/proposed by the attending class.

Potential topics:

- Industrial organization: what, how, and why

- Fundamentals of microeconomics

- Market structure and market power

- Technology and costs of production

- Price discrimination and monopoly: linear pricing

- Price discrimination and monopoly: nonlinear prices

- Product variety and quality in monopoly

- Static games and Cournot-style competition

- Price competition

- Dynamic games, first and second moves

- Price limit and entry deterrence

- Predatory behavior: recent developments

- Price fixing and repeated games

- Collusion: how to identify and counter it

- R&D and patents

Readings/Bibliography

The potential textbook to be used will be:

- Industrial Organization, McGraw-Hill, 3/ed, Lynne Pepall, Daniel J. Richards, George Norman & Giacomo Calzolari.

Supplementary materials (chapters, ope-ed articles) will be provided during the class.

Full details on the exact material to be studied will be given at the beginning of the course.

Teaching methods

The teaching method involves face-to-face lectures in presence and group interactions among students. Considering the type of exam and the quantitative nature of the topics, it is worth pointing out the enormous importance of regular class attendance.

Assessment methods

The assessment method (to be defined) is developed in two directions:

1. Passing a written test involving multiple-choice and open-ended questions on the topics developed during the course.

2. The development of a short paper (3000 words) to be presented at the end of the course. This option is conditional on the number of attending students during the lessons.

The maximum score obtainable by providing all correct answers is 30 cum laude according to the following ranking:<18 failed
18-23 sufficient
24-27 good
28-30 very good
30 cum laude excellent

Teaching tools

Lectures in presence with the support of interactive slides.

Office hours

See the website of Giuseppe Pignataro