Industrial Organisation is concerned with the behavior of firms on markets with imperfect competition. The Research and Policy Seminar supplements the specialization course in Industrial Organization. The specialization course looks at how market conditions determine the characteristics of the products available on the market (both in terms of the quality and the location of the sellers), as well as the price and output levels selected by the firms. Specific attention is played to how firms can actively change the market structure through mergers and acquisitions or other modes of coordination (such as implicit or explicit collusion), as well as through strategies aimed at deterring entry or securing a dominant market position. In each scenario, the welfare consequences with regard to the producers and consumers on the market are discussed, in order to reflect on the potential effects of policy interventions on behalf of a regulator, as well as the optimal instruments for such interventions.

In the Research and Policy Seminar students are encouraged to apply the models to industries with specific characteristics (e.g. two-sided markets such as platforms) or to analyze the effects of specific policy decisions (e.g. trade liberalization).