040383 UK Industrial Organization 1 (E) (2009W)

Introduction

The nature of profits (Uncertainty and profit, mobility and profit, information, mobility and profit)

The nature of the firm (Contracts, Hierarchy in the firm, the nature of the firm, transaction costs)

The Schumpeterian firm (The product life cycle, the causes of shakeouts, entry and exit, first-mover advantages and disadvantages, persistence of profits, evolutionary models of firms and industries)

The managerial corporation (Separation of ownership from control, principal-agent model, goals of managers, firm’s life cycle, constraints on managerial discretion, managerial compensation)

Corporate governance (Ownership and control around the world, the goals of corporate actors, the impact of managerial entrenchment, ownership identity, boards of directors, legal systems)

Investment (Models of determinants of investment: accelerator theory, cash flow models, neoclassical model, expectation theories, MM theorems, CAPM, empirical studies of the determinants of investment (I-CF sensitivities), rates of return on investment)

The Determinants of Mergers (Market power, efficiency, speculative motives, market for corporate control, economic disturbance hypothesis, winner’s curse-hubris, tests of competing hypothesis about the determinants of mergers)

The Effects of Mergers (On profitability, on market shares and growth, on productivity, on share prices, methodological issues, merger waves

The future of corporation and the future of capitalism