Industrial Economics: Competition Policy and Regulation, M1

Lorenzo CASSI and Carine STAROPOLI

The course intends to present the main competition policy (first part) and sectoral regulation topics (second part). The two parts are complementary since competition policy concerns usually ex-post intervention in order to re-establish competition condition while regulation intervenes ex-ante to introduce competition in formerly monopoly activities. The first part starts with a brief historical introduction to competition policy objectives and law and an extensive review of oligopoly theory. Then it intends to analyse collusion and mergers and their effect on welfare. The second part analyses the theoretical foundations of regulation based on market imperfections (natural monopolies, externalities and public goods and present the main theoretical approaches of the regulation contract (incentive theory, transaction cost economics)