Strategic Firm Behaviour, Competition Policy and Regulations (MASTER)

- Provide students with contemporary microeconomic tools of partial equilibrium and game theory to analyse market structure and its determinants.
- Gain understanding of the influence of market size, technological characteristics, competition between firms and government intervention on firm behaviour and market performance in different industries.
- Gain understanding of conflict of interest between competitive firms and social welfare.
- Understanding the importance of economic regulation.
- Understanding how economic regulation is connected to market liberalisation.
- Gain knowledge of different methods of economic regulation and understanding motives of different shareholders.
- Understanding the impact of regulation on prices and returns of regulated firms.
- Students become acquainted with the role of the EU regulatory agencies.
- Students get insights in the regulation process of European and Slovenian public utilities

1. Basic Models of Market Structure
1.1 Monopoly and Extensions
1.2 Oligopolistic Markets and Strategic Behaviour
1.2.1 Static Models of Competition
1.2.2 Product Differentiation and Competition
1.2.3 Dynamic Models of Competition
1.2.4 Entry, Exit and Strategic Commitment
3. Anticompetitive Behavior
3.1 Entry Deterrence, Predatory Conduct and Asymmetric Information
3.2 Price Fixing and Collusion
4. Contractual Relations between Firms
4.1 Horizontal and Vertical Mergers
4.2 Price and Nonprice Vertical Restraints
5. Nonprice Competition
5.1 Advertising, Market Power, Information and Product Differentiation
5.2 R&D, Patents and Technology
6. Competition Policy in Practice
7. Types of economic regulation and theories of economic regulation
7.1 Rationale for economic regulation
7.2 Price regulation: normative analysis of natural monopoly regulation – efficient prices
7.3 Economic regulation in practice: rate of return regulation and incentive-based regulation
7.4 Regulation of quality
7.5 Benchmarking in regulation
8. Economics of environmental regulation: instruments and cases
9. Liberalisation and regulation of markets in the EU
9.1 Common principles
9.2 Regulation of selected industries (energy sector, electronic communications, etc.)