ECF5040 - Industry economics

Leader: Dr Mita Bhattacharya

Offered

Caulfield Second semester 2008 (Day)

Synopsis

The unit develops and examines the theoretical and empirical relationships between the structure of industries; the behaviour of enterprises and market performance. The fundamental principles are applied to the advanced analysis of various forms of firms' interaction: entry deterrence, collusion, product differentiation, advertising, RandD, price discrimination, vertical integration. Welfare and policy issues will be discussed with the help of applied theory and empirical approach. In this respect recent journal articles will be used to analyse the concepts.

Objectives

The learning objectives of this unit are to:

• to promote students understanding of the industry in which firms compete;
• to understand strategic concepts and the use of such concepts with regard to economics, management, and organisational behaviour thereby developing an economic framework or way of thinking;
• to understand the question 'how do we define the firm?', and the relationship of the definition of the firm to the 'make or buy' problem;
• to establish an understanding of the dynamics of entry and exit in the marketplace by looking at strategies that incumbents employ to prevent entry or quicken exit by competitors;
• to develop a competitive advantage framework for characterizing and analysing a firm's strategic position within the market.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 55%
Examination (2 hours): 45%

Contact hours

3 contact hours per week.

Prerequisites

ECF4100 or ECC4650 or equivalent and ECF4200 or ECC4660 or equivalent.