AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY

Spring 2008 - ARE 202 - Industrial Organization and Regulation

Spring Semester, Gordon Rausser and Sofia Villas-Boas

This is the second half of a first year graduate course addressing the main issues and concepts in industrial organization and regulation in agricultural economics. Industrial organization is concerned with the workings of markets, in particular, the way firms interact and compete with each other.

Issues covered include horizontal relationships and mergers; repeated interactions of firms; vertical integration and control through contractual arrangements; information, search costs and the provision of quality in the markets; strategic behavior and predation; and an introduction to auctions.

Course Outline, 2008 Spring, second half will be emailed to you soon.


Assignments and Grading:

50 % - 3 Problem sets P.set 1, due April 10th , P.set 2, due April 24th, P.set 3 to be emailed to you soon, due May 1st

10 % - Classroom participation

10 % - Paper presentation and paper discussion (referee report)

30 % - Final Exam, May TBA, 3-5 pm in the 3rd floor room or in 201, subject to availability of either rooms.

2003 Final Exam , 2004 Final Exam suggested length - 3 hours.


Lecture Notes

Handout on Quality and Information Download here

Handout on Repeated Interactions and Collusion Download here

Handout on Strategic Non-cooperative Behavior Download here .

Handout on Vertical Topics Download here


Readings

Suggested Guidelines For Presenting a Paper.

Suggested guidelines for Referee Report .

Empirical paper session 2. Wednesday April 9th. Jin and Leslie, 2003.Presenting: Chantal and Natasha; Discussing: tba

Empirical paper session 3. Wednesday April 16th. Scorse, 2002.Presenting: Maya and tba. Discussing: tba.

Empirical paper session 4. Wednesday April 23th. Dobson, 2007. Presenting Anna and Lunyu. discussants: tba , Null, 2006. Presenting Fei , Discussing ???

Empirical paper session 5.Tuesday April 29th . Joskow, 1987, Di and Presenters:tba . Discussants tba. and Hastings, 2004. Presenters: Catie and ??? . Discussants: ??? .

Empirical paper session 6. Tuesday May 6th. Kiesel (2005) . Presenters: Jessica and . Discussants: . Ferraz and Finan (2005) . Presenters:Gianmarco and TBA. Discussants: tba .

Empirical paper session 7. Tuesday May 8th. Brown (2005). Presenter:Rodolfo , Discussants: . Nataraj (2006), Presenters: Deepak and , Discussants: tba.


Main references:

Carlton and Perloff (2000): Modern Industrial Organization, Dennis W. Carlton and Jeffrey Perloff, 3rd Edition, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 2000., Companion web-page

Tirole (1989) : The Theory of Industrial Organization, Jean Tirole, 1989, The MIT Press.

Structural Econometric Modeling: Rationales and Examples form IO, Reiss and Wolak, 2004, prepared for Handbook of Econometrics, Volume 5. Link to pdf file .


Link to Referenced Papers

Imperfect Information: Search costs

Diamond, P, "A Model of Price Adjustment",Journal of Economic Theory (not in JSTOR), 3 (1971),156-168, Salop and Stiglitz (1977) JSTOR link , Salop (1977) JSTOR link.

Imperfect Information: Adverse selection

Akerlof (1970) JSTOR link , Leland (1979) JSTOR link.

Repeated games and collusion

Fluctuating Demand: Rotemberg and Saloner (1986) JSTOR link

"Dynamic Pricing", Borenstein and Shepard (1996) ,

Repeated games with Asymmetric information

Green and Porter (1984) JSTOR link

"Cartel/Price Wars", Porter (1983)

Auctions

An Introduction to the Structural Econometrics of Auction Data, Harry J. Paarsch and Han Hong, With contributions by M. Ryan Haley , The MIT Press.

Porter and Zona, JPE 1993, JStor Link.

Online Book on Auctions at : www.paulklemperer.org.

Reading List: Text file.

Articles : Collusion in Bids , Winner's Curse.


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If you need disability-related accommodations in this class, if you have emergency medical information you wish to share with me, or if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please inform me immediately. Please see me privately after class or at my office. The Disabled Students' Program (DSP) is the campus office responsible for verifying that students have disability-related needs for academic accommodations and for planning appropriate accommodations, in cooperation with the students themselves and their instructors. Students who need academic accommodations should request them from DSP: 230 Cesar Chavez Student Center, 642-0518 (voice) and 642-6376 (TTY); Webpage http://www.dsp.berkeley.edu/ .

Last updated Spring , 2008

This page has been accessed at least several times since Fall 2003.