Excerpt from course description

Industrial Organisation and Economics Consulting with Data

Introduction

This course teaches the students theories of industrial organization, how theories can be applied in economics consulting, and how microeconomic models can be quantified using econometric methods and data. Our aim is to integrate theoretical and empirical approaches when analyzing industrial organization cases, drawing on experience from actual consulting cases.

Course content

The course will be taught as an interplay between topics in industrial organization and econometrics, and consulting cases.

Industrial organization topics include:

  • Efficiency
  • Competition policy
  • Price competition, pass-through
  • Stackelberg competition
  • Auctions

In the economic analyses in this course we examine not only the inefficiencies arising from market failures, but also how the resulting losses are distributed across consumers and firms. This perspective highlights that market distortions are not just about lost efficiency, but also about who bears the economic burden. As such, the analyses connect directly to broader sustainability goals, including fairness, equity, and responsible economic governance.

Econometrics topics include:

  • Multiple regression analysis
  • Instrumental variable techniques

There will be guest lecturers from the economics consulting industry.

When we analyze data, we will use Python and/or STATA as our primary tools for statistical analysis and data management. Students will also learn how to effectively leverage artificial intelligence tools to assist with tasks such as organizing, structuring, and preparing datasets for analysis. In addition, the course will emphasize critical thinking about when and how to use these technologies responsibly to produce reliable and interpretable results.

Disclaimer

This is an excerpt from the complete course description for the course. If you are an active student at BI, you can find the complete course descriptions with information on eg. learning goals, learning process, curriculum and exam at portal.bi.no. We reserve the right to make changes to this description.