Undergraduate - UnitECS3830 - Competition and regulation

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2014 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 3, 0.125 EFTSL

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Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Business and Economics
Organisational Unit	Department of Economics
Offered	South Africa First semester 2014 (Day)

Synopsis

This unit considers market structures, conduct and performance from the business perspective; economic policy as it affects horizontal and vertical relationships in business, particularly in relation to its dealings with consumers; the variety of approaches to competition and regulation policies from a South African and international perspective; analysis of policies with respect to prices, monopolies, oligopolies and mergers, consumer protection and licensing, deregulation, privatisation and nationalisation.

Outcomes

The learning goals associated with this unit are to:

recognise differences in market structures and understand how those differences affect firms' competitive behaviour and performance
understand how and why competition causes changes in market structures by way of mergers, acquisitions, vertical integration and diversification
explain the economic rationale for competitive weapons utilised by business in contemporary competitive environment, such as barriers to entry, pricing and advertising strategies, product differentiation, and innovation
explain the rationale for regulation and merits of different theories of regulation
explain the arguments for and against privatisation
understand the main features of national competition policies in South Africa and other African nations compared to international experience
critically evaluate attempts to affect competition in particular industries, e.g. electricity and telecommunications.