Industrial Organization

This is a complete listing of all economics courses. Not all courses are offered each year.
Click here for a list of currenly offered courses.

14.271 Industrial Organization I
Prereq: 14.04
Covers theoretical and empirical work dealing with the structure, behavior, and performance of firms and markets and core issues in antitrust. Topics include: the organization of the firm, monopoly, price discrimination, oligopoly, and auctions. Theoretical and empirical work are integrated in each area.

14.272 Industrial Organization II
Prereq: 14.271
A continuation of 14.271. Topics covered include horizontal mergers, vertical integration and vertical restraints, natural monopoly and its regulation, public enterprise, political economy of regulation, network access pricing, deregulation of telecommunications, electric power, cable television, and transportation sectors.

14.286J Health Economics Seminar
(Same as HST.903J) Prereq: 14.04, permission of instructor
Can be repeated for credit. Advanced subject in economics of health care sector. Considers selected topics in depth, such as design and financing of health insurance, behavior of nonprofit hospitals, role of competition in the medical care market, determinants of technological change, and effects of government regulations.

14.292 Antitrust Seminar (Revised Content)
Prereq: 14.271 or permission of instructor
Discussion of economic issues as they arise in actual antitrust cases. Emphasis on cases in which the instructor has participated including (but not limited to) the Microsoft and IBM antitrust cases. Students are expected to construct and criticize economic testimony in the context of the facts of an actual case. 14.271 suggested as a prerequisite but not required.

14.294 Seminar in Political Economy
Prereq: 14.121, 14.122, permission of instructor
Political economics is the study of group or collective decision-making processes and the institutions that evolve to implement them. Includes collective choice theory, interest group competition, theories of economic regulation, legislative behavior, bureaucracy, and behavior of administrative agencies. Both theoretical and empirical work are discussed.

14.295J Theory of Collective Choice: Empirical Tests
(Same subject as 17.808J)
Prereq: 17.806J or permission of instructor
Focuses on the relationship between the behavioral models developed by formal theorists and the statistical models used in empirical estimation. The main questions are, how do researchers make the link between theory and the data? How do they generate and estimate statistical models that allow careful testing of the behavioral models? What constitutes a "good" test of a model? These questions studied through reading and discussion of articles that combine both empirical and theoretical analysis.

14.296J Theory of Collective Choice: Institutions and Positive Political Theory
(Subject meets with 17.806J)
Prereq: -
An applied theory subject analyzing political institutions from a rational choice perspective. The chief focus is the burgeoning literature on elections, legislatures, bureaucracies, and courts. Pays some attention to institutions from a comparative perspective. Advanced undergraduates may take subject with permission of instructor. Graduate Students are expected to pursue the subject in greater depth through reading and individual research.

14.298 Issues in Political Economy
Prereq.: 14.121,14.451
Reviews recent theoretical and empirical developments about income inequality and redistribution. Examines questions of how well various distribution theories explain the general increase in inequality since the 1970's; which are the right instruments to reduce inequality; whether there is a trade-off between equality and growth; and why the politics of income redistribution are so different across countries. Presents papers from various fields: growth theory, economic history, labor economics, and formalpolitical theory.