Instructor: Robin D. Hanson, Asst. Professor, Economics (rhanson@gmu.edu, http://robinhanson.com)
Office Hours: I'm usually in at 10b Carow Hall. Call ahead (703-993-2326) if you want to be sure.
Catalog Entry:

Econ 844 Industrial Organization and Public Policy I (3:3:0). Prerequisite: ECON 611 or permission of instructor. Structure of American industry and underlying determinants. Analysis of structure and conduct on industrial performance in light of theory and empirical evidence. Rational antitrust policy and analysis of impact on structure and performance.

Oz Shy, Industrial Organization, Theory and Applications, MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-69179-5, 1996.

F.M. Scherer, Industry, Structure, Strategy, and Public Policy, Harper Collins, ISBN 0-673-99289-6, 1996.

Jean Tirole, The Theory of Industrial Organization, MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-20071-6, 1994.

Dennis Carlton and Jeffrey Perloff, Modern Industrial Organization, Second Edition, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-673-46902-6, 1994.

• Class Participation Please contribute to class discussions.
• Homework Homework will be assigned from the Shy text. If you turn it in, it will be corrected, but it will not contribute to your class grade.
• Article Review Write a review of one published article, as if you had been asked by a journal editor to critique it. Summarize it, critique its strengths and weaknesses, and say whether it should be published. The article should relevant, non-ancient, and contain a math model.
• Final Exam A problem-solved oriented exam will be given in class based on the homework. The test is closed book, but you may bring one 8.5"x11" piece of paper of notes.
• Research Paper Your paper should be the sort you might submit to a journal such as the one that published the article you critiqued. A plan for writing a paper should briefly describe the problem you intend to address and the method you intend to apply. Your final paper may deviate from this plan, but I want to see that you have at least one reasonable plan at your disposal.

• Oct. 5, 1999. Submit a copy of the article you've chosen to review.
• Nov. 2, 1999. Submit a one page paper plan.
• Nov. 9, 1999. Submit your finished article review.
• Dec. 7, 1999. Submit your finished research paper.
• Dec. 14, 1999. Final Exam 7:30-10:15pm.

1. Participate 5%, Review 15%, Exam 30%, Paper 50%.
2. Participate 5%, Review 15%, Exam 80%. (Here, exams are held to a higher standard.)

subscribe ECON844 John Smith

Sam Peltzman, Review of The Handbook of Industrial Organization, The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 99, No. 1. (Feb., 1991), pp. 201-217.