Industrial Organization and Public Policy
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this course on how firms behave in imperfectly competitive markets, the kind of markets that dominate real economies far more than the textbook model of perfect competition. Topics include the sources and exercise of market power, strategic interactions among firms such as pricing and entry deterrence, collusion and cartels, and the government's role through antitrust and competition policy. The course combines economic theory with applied analysis of real industries and policy cases, building on a basic microeconomics background. Materials include lecture notes, readings, problem sets, and exams as posted by the instructor, with no cost to access any of it. It is aimed at students who want to move beyond introductory microeconomics into the strategic and regulatory questions that arise when markets are not perfectly competitive.