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Competition and market regulation (2235.YR.015464.1)

General information

Type:

OPT

Curs:

3

Period:

S semester

ECTS Credits:

3 ECTS

Teaching Staff:

Group Teacher Department Language
Year 3 Gianandrea Staffiero Economía, Finanzas y Contabilidad ENG

Previous Knowledge

Students are expected to be familiar with basic mathematics and microeconomics tools.

COURSE CONTRIBUTION TO PROGRAM

Competition and Market Regulation is a course that allows students to understand the rationale of policy and regulatory actions with respect to their stated goals.
Since Adam Smith's seminal work, economists and social scientists in general have been thinking about the conditions needed to ensure that markets contributes to enhance the overall welfare of our societies - the "total surplus" - in the language of economics.
Students will become familiar with the concrete problems and dilemmas that competition authorities and regulators face. They will also learn in which circumstances firms get real opportunities incentives to innovate and compete or, on the contrary, entry barriers, flawed regulations and abusive conduct hinder competition.

Course Learning Objectives

At the end of the course, students should be able to:
1. Demonstrate knowledge about the rationale and objectives of competition policy
2. Understand how to apply economics to analyse strategic interactions among firms and the competitive effects of mergers
3. Discuss competition cases involving abuse of dominance, collusion and exclusionary conduct

CONTENT

1. The role of competition policy

1.1 Competition and welfare.
1.2 Sources of market power.
1.3. Oligopolistic competition

2. Strategic behaviour

2.1 Barriers to entry
2.2 Competition effects of regulation

3. Merger regulation

3.1 Market definition
3.2 Unilateral and coordinated effects
3.3 The efficiency defence

4. Vertical relationships

4.1 Vertical integration
4.2 Transaction costs
4.3 Double marginalisation
4.4 Vertical restraints

5. Abusive conduct

5.1 Predatory pricing
5.2 Tying and bundling
5.3 Most preferred nation
5.4 Resale price maintenance

6. State Aid

6.1 Rationale for State Aid regulation
6.2 EU approach
6.3 Case studies (airlines and/or other examples)

7. Behavioural insights and regulation

7.1 Bounded rationality and behavioural bias
7.2 Applying behavioural insights in utilities and financial markets

8. Competition policy in practice

8.1 US and EU approaches
8.2 The Microsoft case
8.3 The attempted GE-Honeywell case

Relation between Activities and Contents

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Class participation                
Essay/presentation                
Final exam                

Methodology

Lectures will be delivered in power-point slides, with references to the textbook and additional sources.
They will include economic models presented with case studies, graphs and equations. While some reasonable familiarity with these tools is expected, the course will not be overly "technical" and it will allow all students to interpret the content of the course, irrespectively of their disciplinary backgrounds. Importantly, students should never hesitate to ask the instructor for additional help and clarifications on the materials presented.
Students are expected to participate actively, engage with the questions posed by the instructors and by other fellow students, and share their points of view and doubts in the classroom. They will also have the opportunity to deliver presentations on selected topics.

ASSESSMENT

ASSESSMENT BREAKDOWN

Description %
Class participation 20
Essay/presentation 30
Final exam 50

Assessment criteria

The evaluation will be based on active class participation (20%), an essay or a class presentation which, in both cases, can be delivered by small teams of students (30%) and a final exam which will take place during the last week of lectures (50%).
In all the three components, students will show their active learning of the key concepts in competition policy and regulation, as well as critical thinking around the topics presented during the course.

Bibliography

The main references for this course are:

- Competition Policy. Theory and Practice, by Massimo Motta, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
- Industrial Organization: A Strategic Approach, by Jeffrey R Church and Roger Ware, McGraw-Hill, New York, USA

Additional materials used during the course can be found in:

- Exclusionary practices, The economics of abuse of dominance and monopolisation, by Chiara Fumagalli, Massimo Motta and Claudio Calcagno, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
- Cases in European Competition Policy, by Bruce Lyons (eds), Cambridge University Press, UK

Articles, case studies and other references will be indicated during the course.


Timetable and sections

Group Teacher Department
Year 3 Gianandrea Staffiero Economía, Finanzas y Contabilidad

Timetable Year 3

From 2024/2/15 to 2024/5/16:
Each Thursday from 17:30 to 20:00. (Except: 2024/3/28 and 2024/4/25)