Basic knowledge of Economics, Statistics and Mathematics. It will be helpful if one has a good background in statistics.
The course contributes to the educational objectives of the course of study with regard to the economic-management area, in particular with reference to issues relating to the industrial economy, helping to improve the knowledge and understanding of the strategies of companies in the service and business regulation and understanding of business and management strategies. As for the new skills in applied knowledge, the aim is to provide techniques for analyzing the market behavior of companies. New insights will be gained from models based on business strategies in market sectors. The course presents the strategies that companies with market power can adopt in order to maximize the return on corporate investments. Topics range from pricing decision models (consumer discrimination, bundling and joint selling), anti-competitive behavior (collusion, entry deterrence and business mergers and / or acquisitions), mergers and acquisitions, vertical relationships. The goal is to develop the skills necessary to conduct and interpret the market strategies of companies and the consequences for collective well-being.
The main contents are: imperfect competition, market structure and market power, price discrimination, product variety, collusion, mergers, vertical relations.
The course is composed by lectures, and tutorials. Lectures provides general knowledge and models to understand companies market strategies. Tutorials are numerical exercises to apply economic theory and understand the implementation of the model.
The assessment takes place through a written exam, consisting of a numerical exercise to be solved and an open question. Exercise and open question are evaluated out of thirty, the final mark is the arithmetic average of the two evaluations. Students who wish may write and submit a group report (maximum 3 components) which entails a bonus of 3 points (i.e., 3 out of thirty). The report is a critical summary of an article provided by the teacher. The deadline for delivery (by email) of the report is January 6, 2022 - midnight. The details for the report will be provided during the lessons. The final output of the report is a Keynote / Powerpoint file, including tables and figures. Lower limit: 20 slides. Upper limit: 30 slides. The file must be converted to PDF. The file name is given by the 3 initials of the surnames of the 3 students who make up the group in capital letters, for example if the surnames of the 3 students are Bianchi, Martini, Rossi, the file name is BMR.pdf.
For students attending and not attending the assessment methods are the same. Even non-attending students can submit the report. However, in group, not individually. The attendance of classes is free.