NRE 5440 - Empirical Methods in Dynamic Industrial Organization

1.5 credits.

Staff.

This course focuses on recent developments in empirical industrial organization, with an emphasis on dynamic structural models. We will study techniques for developing and estimating dynamic models of demand and competition. In these types of models, an economic agent’s decision today can have an impact on how he and other players make their decisions in the future. In many situations, economic agents recognize this relationship and make strategic choices. Examples of dynamic demand models include consumer learning models, inventory and stockpiling problems, durable goods adoption and replacement decisions. Examples of dynamic competition models, include dynamic price competition, entry-exit, store location and product positioning. We will emphasize the importance of combining theory, institutional details and econometric techniques to answer these types of questions in marketing, industrial organization and other applied microeconomics areas. By discussing several empirical applications in detail, we will illustrate how to apply basic modeling techniques to dynamic problems at hand. There is no text. The course will be a mixture of lecture notes and discussion of specific papers.