- Familiarize students with the main economic tools to analyse firms' strategic behaviour markets, comprising those of the digital economy. Introduce students to the basic concepts of applied antitrust economics by reviewing real-world cases handled at the National as well at the Continental level. - Endow students with analytical tools to interpret real competition cases - Introduce students to the dimension of the economist as a "social engineer"

Knowledge and understanding. By participating in the lectures and practical activities of the course, the students will develop the ability to understand: intertemporal price discrimination and monopolistic markets with asymmetric information; various forms of (static) price discrimination; oligopolistic competition and the phenomenon of collusion in markets (even in digital markets). Applying knowledge and understanding: The student - acquiring the correct tools and method - will be able to apply and present to interpret and critically assess real-world cases (e.g. antitrust cases) Making judgements: The student, by making use of the appropriate methods learned during the course, will be able to collect data and materials to analyse market stuctures They will also learn that modern economic theory does not always provide clear-cut answers to international antitrust cases. Communication skills. Despite the course hinging essentially on the ability to represent concrete economic problems by means of stylized mathematical problems, the student will learn to draft intuitive economic considerations by interpreting mathematical representations. Learning skills. Both the methodology and the techniques learnt during the course will allow the student to undertake more in-depth analyses of modern industrial economics, which are instrumental to pursue a more research-oriented career as well as to develop more consultancy-oriented skills for joining research units and international organizations.

Industrial Organization studies the interaction of firms and consumers in markets that are characterized by imperfect competition. We will explore the sources and consequences of market power, and discuss strategic behaviour in competitive interactions. The course will cover topics in monopoly, price discrimination, static and dynamic oligopoly models, cartel behaviour, product differentiation, market definition, measures of competition and mergers. Each topic will be supplemented by case studies and problem sets.

The main textbook is Jeffrey Church and Roger Ware: Industrial Organization: A Strategic Approach, McGraw Hill, 2000. Excerpts of G. Haeringer's "Market Design: Auctions and Matching" will also be used. Further readings will be posted on the course’s webpage.

Lectures, problem sets, case studies. Lecture notes will be published on the webpage: http://docenti.luiss.it/albano/io-and-competition-theory/materiali-didattici/

The exam consists of a written exam paper and mimicks the logic of the course problem sets. Exam questions are logically divided into two blocks: 2 questions usually address the most fundamental concepts of the modern Industrial Organization; 2-3 questions deal with more advanced topics (e.g., antitrust cases). Each single question requires the ability to represent an economic problem by means of a stylized model. The evaluation logic hinges on each student’s ability to: • analytically represent the problem (60%); • mathematically solve the problem (25%) • provide an economic intuition of the solution, if/when applicable (15%). In general, the quality of written English in not assessed in the exam paper.

Nature of the topic