Industrial Organization

This upper-level undergraduate text provides an introduction to industrial organization theory along with applications and nontechnical analyses of the legal system and antitrust laws. Using the modern approach but without emphasizing the mathematical generality inherent in many of the arguments, it bridges the gap between existing nontheoretical texts written for undergraduates and highly technical texts written for graduate students. The book can also be used in masters’ programs, and advanced graduate students will find it a convenient guide to modern industrial organization.The treatment is rigorous and comprehensive. A wide range of models of all widely used market structures, strategic marketing devices, compatibility and standards, advertising, R&D, as well as more traditional topics are considered in versions much simplified from the originals but that retain the basic intuition.

Shy first defines the issues that industrial organization addresses and then develops the tools needed to attack the basic questions. He begins with perfect competition and then considers imperfectly competitive market structures including a wide variety of monopolies, and all forms of quantity and price competitions. The last chapter provides a helpful feature for students by showing how various theories may be related to particular industries but not to others.

Topics include: the basics needed to understand modern industrial organization; market structure (monopoly, homogenous products, differentiated products); mergers and entry; research and development; economics of compatibility and standards; advertising; quality and durability; pricing tactics; marketing tactics; management, compensation, and information; price dispersion and search theory; and special industries.