Topics in Organization and Markets (cancelled for 2022-23)

The course’s aim is for students to become proficient in the process of development and execution of research ideas within the fields of Industrial Organization and Organizational Economics. Both fields are large. Rather than a broad overview, this course will discuss several topics in detail. This discussion will be representative for both the type of research questions that are addressed in these fields as well as for the methods of study (theoretical, empirical, and experimental). In class, the lecturers will discuss some of their own papers together with closely related papers. The emphasis will be on how the lecturers developed the research ideas leading to the papers. This means that the lecturers will focus less on the technical details, and more on the creative process.

To stimulate students to take part in the creative process, a substantial part of each lecture will be devoted to discuss the students’ ideas for future research based on the papers discussed. For each lecture, students have to formulate an idea for a research project. Their ideas are discussed during the lecture. To facilitate the discussion, students have to send in a written version (about half a page) of the idea on the day before the lecture. Each idea will be discussed during the lecture; active participation of the other students is expected here.