ECO 2901: Industrial Organization II

University of Toronto, Spring 2006

 

Professor:    Johannes Van Biesebroeck

                   (jovb at chass.utoronto.ca)

                   140 St. George, 611

                   (416) 946-5795

 

Office hours: by appointment

Classes:       Tuesday 3-5pm, BL 312 (note the new room!!)

Syllabus:      in pdf (updated January 3, 2006)

 

Presentations:

Please see the schedule of presentations below. Everyone has to read all the papers and prepare to answer the following two questions (you will get cold-called):

*      Which assumptions are crucial for the conclusions the authors draw?

*      Are you convinced by the analysis? Why/Why not?

 

As presenter, try to budget your time well as you only have 20-25’. Focus on the most important facts, with a particular eye to identifying market power. Make sure the you discuss:

*      What is an observation? The dependent variable? Crucial explanatory variables?

*      What is the useful variation in the data the author exploits?

*      What is the behavioral assumption regarding market conduct?

*      Try to distinguish between the raw facts (patterns in the data) and the interpretation given.

 

First week of presentations: January 31

  1. Dillon Casey – Porter (1983) railroads
  2. Matthew Backus – Bresnahan (1987) autos
  3. Christian Dippel – Smith (2005) oil
  4. Luhang Wang – Borenstein, Bushnell, & Wolak (2003) electricity

Second week of presentations: February 7

  1. Hui Wang – Borenstein & Shepard (1996) gasoline
  2. Inna Galperin – Borenstein (1989) airlines
  3. Kaza Ishihara – Bresnahan, Stern, Trajtenberg (1997) computers

 

Problem sets:

Will be posted shortly

*      Problem Set 1: Joint Executive Committee – Porter (1983) (Data set – newrailway.dat)

*      Problem Set 2: Productivity Measurement – Olley & Pakes (1996) (Data set – flatdata.raw)

*      Problem Set 3: Single Agent Dynamics – Rust (1987)  (Data set – ps-rust_data.txt)

 

Paper assignment:

Instructions will be posted shortly: instructions (pdf)

Deadline for the paper is April 25, 2006. I expect each of you to schedule a meeting with me between April 4 and April 11. Here is a useful note on writing economics papers: howtobuildmodel.pdf (by Hal varian)

 

Notes:

Eugene Choo offers a complementary class in empirical IO (ECO2404). We have divided up the topics to avoid overlap. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to take both classes. Especially, Ph.D. students that want to take the field exam in i.o. are urged to attend Eugene’s class.  More information is on his website (Eugene Choo)

 

Another class that might be of interest is MGT3003 that was previously thaught by Ken Corts and Joanne Oxley in Rotman (this year Joanne will teach it alone). Their syllabus from last year is here: syllabus

 

If you want to read more, some additional papers that extend the material covered in lectures is here: Additional readings 2003-04 (You can always come see me if you are interested in one topic specifically)

 

In case you might find them helpful, here are my notes for the different parts: market power, productivity, dynamics, theory of the firm.