Applied Markets Regulation

Recommended Prerequisites

Knowledge of Microeconomics and Industrial Organization may facilitate learning. However, this unit should be accessible also to students from related areas, other than economics.

Teaching Methods

The classes will have both a theoretical and a practical component, comprising periods of exposition of the contents and periods of interaction with the students to do exercises and allowing them to discuss topics involving presentations of assignments.
Each academic year we will invite one or two researchers from other R&D institutions, national and/or international, or prominent specialists in the area, who will present and discuss specific topics of regulated sectors.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the course, students should be able to understand the rationale for economic regulation; understand alternative pricing solutions of the natural monopoly and the main mechanisms of the natural monopoly regulation; comprehend key issues of economic regulation in practice under asymmetric information; appreciate the impacts of the restructuring of network industries; and analyze and critically discuss critical issues associated to the regulation of specific sectors and to the respective regulatory authorities’ activity.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. What is economic regulation? Introduction
2. Rationale for regulation
3. Natural monopoly: pricing and regulation
4. Cost of service regulation
5. Incentive based regulation
6. Restructuring and regulatory reform of network industries
7. Key issues in sector regulation.

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Research work: 50.0%
Frequency: 50.0%

Bibliography

Viscusi, W. Kip; Joseph E. Harrington and John M. Vernon (2018). Economics of Regulation and Antitrust, 5th Edition. MIT Press.
Church, J.; Ware, R. - Industrial organization: a strategic approach. Boston: Irwin/McGraw- Hill, 2000.
(Bibliografia adicional será fornecida para tópicos específicos) /(Supplementary readings will be provided for specific topics).