Industrial organisation and competition policy

Industrial organisation (IO) studies firm behaviour and its consequences in settings where the assumption of perfect competition fails, i.e., where we can no longer just think about the intersection of a demand and supply curve. The topics include pricing and marketing strategies that individual firms can use to increase profits (price discrimination, bundling, advertising); the effects of interactions between firms and problems that can arise if they coordinate on anti-competitive strategies (cartels, merger, entry, vertical restraints, exclusive dealing); the design of marketplaces (network effect); and public policy responses to firm behaviour, including antitrust laws and regulation.