Title:                     Microeconomics and Industrial Organization

Instructor:          Maurizio Conti - Claudio Piga, claudio.piga@unige.it

Credit (CFU):     4

Lectures: 26 hours

Reading and Essay Writing: 75 hours

Period Taught:  February-April

Course Description and objectives

This course is the part of the Microeconomics sequence for the PhD program in Economics and EQM. The objective of the course is twofold. In terms of the material covered, it aims to provide students with a brief but rigorous introduction of essential topics in microeconomic theory. On the methodological side, it aspires to offer insights on how general theoretical concepts are useful to interpret data collected in various business situations and to derive experimental methods and appropriate econometric techniques that are useful for academic research in economics. The course is divided into two parts, which will run and be assessed independently.

Prerequisites

It is expected that students have prior knowledge of intermediate microeconomics methods and concepts. 

Course Materials

Lecture slides will generally contain all the material students are expected to learn. In turn, the lectures will often refer to and closely follow the relevant chapters in:

Nechyba, T. (2011), Microeconomics: an Intuitive Approach with Calculus, International Edition, 1^st or 2^nd Edition, Southwestern CEngage Learning

Belleflamme and Peitz (2015), Industrial Organization, Cambridge University Press, 

Pepall, Richards, Norman, (2013) Industrial Organization: Contemporary Theory and Empirical Applications. fifth edition, Blackwell Publishing 

PART A – Claudio Piga

Lecture Schedule 

Assessment of Part A

Students will be assessed in the final exam, which will consist in a written report containing between 1500-2000 words. The report will have to discuss the relevance and relationship of the lecture materials with the original contributions in the following articles and the literature therein cited:

Lacetera, N., Piga, C.A. and Zirulia, L., (2024), Sticky price for declining risk? Business strategies with “behavioral” customers in the hotel industry, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, Early View

Nicolini, M., Piga C.A. and Pozzi, A. (2023) From Uniform to Bespoke Prices: Hotel Pricing during EURO 2016.  Quantitative Marketing and Economics, 21, 333-355, Open access

Alderighi, A., Gaggero, A. and Piga, C.A. (2022). Hidden prices with fixed inventory: evidence from the airline industry' Transportation Research Part B, 157, 42-61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trb.2022.01.001, Open Access

Alderighi, M., Nicolini and Piga, C.A., (2015) Combined Effects of Capacity and Time on Fares: Insights from the Yield Management of a Low-Cost Airline'', Review of Economics and Statistics, 97(4), 900-915.

Part B – Maurizio Conti

Lecture Schedule 

Assessment of Part B

Students will be assessed with a final take home exam which will be based on lectures and the following books and articles:

Belleflamme and Peitz (2015), Industrial Organization, Cambridge University Press, chapters 2, 3, 4, 14

Tirole (1988), The Theory of Industrial Organization, MIT Press, 1988, chapters 1 & 5.

Munoz-Garcia (2017), Advanced Microeconomic Theory, MIT Press, chapters 7 & 8.

De Loecker J. and Warzinsky F. (2012) Markups and firm level export status, American Economic Review, 102, 6.