ECONOMICS AND INDUSTRIAL POLITICS - MASTER COURSE

Course objectives

This course builds upon issues that are commonly dealt with in first-level Industrial Organization courses. The course deals with regulatory and competition policies. The aim is to provide students with tools to understand and design optimal ex ante and ex post public interventions in the economy at the sectoral level, to investigate the rationale for such interventions, the complex relationship between Regulators and regulated companies and the possibility for these interventions to overcome market failures. Acquired skills Students will learn how to design tariffs and other types of regulatory interventions, as well a how to define relevant markets and measure market power. They will learn how abusive practices, collusion and the economic impact of mergers and acquisitions are assessed, as well as the rationale for these practices to be deterred. At the end of the course, students will have good knowledge of industrial economics models applied to regulatory and antitrust issues and will be able to perform their own analysis of the different regulatory and competition policies.

Channel 1
LAURA FERRARI BRAVO Lecturers' profile

Program - Frequency - Exams

Course program
PROGRAM: The course is divided into the two parts indicated below. Part one: Regulatory economics 1. Introductory notions a. Regulatory goals b. Costs and benefits of regulation c. Regulation and competition d. The theory of natural monopoly 2. Theory of regulation a. The first best: marginal cost pricing b. Peak-load pricing, non-linear pricing, Ramsey pricing c. Incentive schemes (rate of return, price cap) d. Competition for the market 3. The regulation of network industries a. Cost measures: economic costs, accounting costs, incremental costs b. Vertical relationships: theory of essential facilities, access pricing, public service obligations, functional and corporate separation. Second part: Competition Policy 1. Introductory notions a. Competition policies: history, objectives and legislation b. Market power and social welfare c. Relevant market definition and the assessment of market power d. The concept of dominance: individual dominance and collective dominance 2. Restrictive agreements a. Horizontal agreements: collusion theory b. Vertical agreements 3. Abuse of dominant position a. Predatory pricing and other pricing abuses b. Foreclosure and leveraging c. Bundling and tying and other monopolization practices 4. Merger control
Prerequisites
Microeconomics
Teaching mode
Lezioni frontali
Exam mode
Domande a risposta aperta
Lesson mode
Lezioni frontali
  • Lesson code1035667
  • Academic year2024/2025
  • CourseBusiness Administration
  • CurriculumManagement delle aziende pubbliche
  • Year1st year
  • Semester2nd semester
  • SSDSECS-P/02
  • CFU6
  • Subject areaEconomico