Oliver Kirchkamp

Seminar Industrial Organisation: Theory and Experiments

Teacher
Dr. Alexia Gaudeul
Topic
In this seminar, we will study a number of models of strategic interaction between firms and check whether their predictions are verified in laboratory experiments. We will also consider whether and how findings from industrial organization are affected by limits in the rationality of the decisions of consumers and competitors.

Students will be assigned academic articles from the field of experimental industrial organization and will be asked to present them to others along some guidelines (presentation of the basic model that is tested in the article, description of the design and findings of the experiment, overview of related experimental literature, discussion about the applicability of the findings to real market situations).

Grading will be based 40% on participation, including the quality of the presentation and of the contributions to the ensuing discussion, and 60% on the paper that each student will have to write about their assigned academic article after having presented it and discussed it during the seminar.

The seminars will take place as block seminars at the end of January and beginning of February (exact dates to be announced). The list of articles and further information will be circulated in September.

Literature
Survey articles include:
  • Charles R. Plott (1982): “Industrial Organization Theory and Experimental Economics”, Journal of Economic Literature, 20(4), pp. 1485-1527.
  • Charles A. Holt (1995): “Industrial Organization: A Survey of Laboratory Research”, in the Handbook of Experimental Economics, J. Kagel and A. Roth, eds., Princeton University Press, pp. 349-444.
Reference books include:
  • “The Theory of Industrial Organization” By Jean Tirole (for explanation of models of strategic interaction).
  • “Bounded Rationality and Industrial Organization” by Ran Spiegler (for models with boundedly rational economic agents).