ECO422H1S Special Topics in Economics, Topics in Business Economics

In this course, students develop tools to describe various aspects of a firm’s organizational structure. Students study the circumstances that lead firms to adopt a particular culture, share authority with employees or not, delegate or centralize decision making. Students will also see how these choices almost always allow for organizational failure in the right kind of wrong circumstance. Throughout the course, students will practice applying microeconomic models to rich business case studies to explain or predict behavior of and dynamics within organizations. At the end of this course students will be able to recognize and analyze the organizational choices every firm must make along a variety of dimensions. Students will understand the economic relevance of “second best outcomes,” derive a second best outcome mathematically in various settings, and give real-world examples. The course will involve thorough discussions of applied theory papers. Students should thus be (willing to become) comfortable reading research papers that use extensive mathematical modeling. They should have a good understanding of utility and profit maximization, pure and mixed strategy Nash equilibria, and backward induction.

Section L0201 , Winter 2017–18

Instructor: Karen Bernhardt-Walther
Day/time: W1-4

Delivery Method & Instructions : In Person

Location: RW140
TA: Mathieu Gilbert-Gonthier