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Lectures winter term 2025/2026

Lecture:

The lecture "Industrial Organisation" will be offered in presence this semester.

Monday, 14:00 - 16:00, Room M.12.25
Start: 20.10.2025

and

Thursday, 10:00 - 12:00, Room M.14.22
Start: 16.10.2025

 

Tutorial:

Tuesday, 10:00 - 12:00, Room M.13.09
Start: 28.10.2025

 

You can find the link to the Moodle course here end of September 2025.

Course description

In reality, free markets characterized by fierce competition and free market entry are the exception rather than the rule. Firms pursue a variety of competitive strategies to achieve dominance and maintain market power. This course uses case studies and industrial economic models to provide a broader, more realistic picture of firm behavior in real markets and to understand the variety of competitive strategies pursued by, for example, Internet companies, electronics firms, pharmaceutical companies, and automobile manufacturers. At the same time, this course examines how antitrust authorities can identify and prevent anticompetitive behavior by firms. Two main questions explored in this course are: How do firms acquire, use, and maintain market power? How can antitrust authorities deal with anticompetitive activities by firms that restrict competition at the expense of consumers and/or competitors?
This course addresses competitive strategies of firms in imperfectly competitive markets and the resulting market dynamics. Considered are advanced pricing strategies of firms, strategic interaction of firms in oligopoly markets, market entry, endogenous determinants of industry structure, and strategies of firms with respect to decisions such as product differentiation, vertical integration, advertising, and innovation.

Course language

The language of instruction (lectures, exercises) is English. This also applies to the teaching materials and the literature accompanying the lectures and tutorials. The exam can be taken either in English or in German.

 

Lecture:

The lecture "MWIWI 2.17: Game Theory and Experimental Economics" is offered this semester.


The course consists of two parts:


Game Theory
Tuesday, 14:00 - 18:00, Room M.15.09
Duration: 21.10.2025 - 02.12.2025

Experimental Economics
Tuesday, 14:00 - 18:00, Room M.15.09
Duration: 09.12.2025 - 03.02.2026

 

 

Exercise:

Friday, 12:00 - 14:00, M.15.13

Start: to be announced

and 

Monday, 10:00 - 12:00, M.14.22

Start: 15.12.2025

Lecturer: Prof. Bönte

You can find the Moodle course here end of September 2025.

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND LEARNING GOALS 

GAME THEORY

In the first lecture dealing with game theory, students learn fundamental mechanisms to explain decision making, attaining a deeper understanding of those economic processes underlying social, political and economic affairs. By the end of the lecture on game theory, students should be able to cope with fundamental advanced microeconomic methods of decision making, analyze complex decision situations by game theoretic approaches, to critically assess microeconomic instruments and methods regarding their appropriateness and outcomes in relation to alternative approaches. 

EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS

In the second lecture dealing with experimental economics, students get familiarized with experimental methods across different research streams in a reflective way. The students learn the principles of economic experiments and are introduced to different types of experiments and experimental designs. Issues of internal and external validity, the basic steps of conducting economic experiments as well as the analysis of experimental data and reporting of results are core topics of this lecture. By the end of the lecture students will be enabled to develop the skills necessary to critically evaluate experimental research and to understand the opportunities and limits of the experimental research methods.

Additional information: 

  • Course language: The language of instruction (lectures, exercises) is English. This also applies to the teaching materials and the literature accompanying the lectures and tutorials.
  • Prerequisites/ requirements: Basic knowledge of microeconomics and statistics.
  • This course is only offered in the winter semester.

Lecture:

The lecture "Grundzüge der Volkswirtschaftslehre III (Wirtschaftspolitik)" will be offered in presence this semester.

Tuesday, 14:00 - 16:00, lecture hall 33
Start: 21 October 2025

and

Wednesday, 10:00 - 12:00, lecture hall 33
Start: 22 October 2025

Lecturers: Prof. Dr. Christian Bredemeier/Prof. Dr. Werner Bönte

 

Tutorial:

to be announced soon

You can find the link to the Moodle course here end of September 2025.

Learning objectives:

Students are familiar with the fundamentals of scientifically based economic policy and can classify different forms of market failure. They understand the relationship between economic theory and economic policy and can analyze economic policy issues. Students are able to identify the theoretical references of current economic policy problems, to scrutinize different positions and to evaluate economic policy measures.

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