ECONOMICS OF COMPETITION AND REGULATION POLICY - 2025/6

Module Overview

Economics of Competition and Regulation Policy is a microeconomics course concerned with the performance of markets and the strategic behaviour of firms. The course draws on the fields of industrial organization and market design and focuses on imperfect competition, co-operation between firms, and common regulations such as anti-trust laws. This is a theory-based optional module for third year BSc students. The aim of the module is to provide a solid understanding of some of the core economic models of imperfect competition and to help students understand the challenges involved with designing and structuring markets.

Module provider

Economics

Module Leader

WALKER-JONES David (Economics)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 6

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 1

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

n/a

Module content

Indicative content includes:

*Competition Policy

*Regulatory Policy Making and Impact

*Individually optimal vs socially optimal outcomes

*Repeated games and cartels

*Environmental policy and externalities

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

n/a

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate: Their understanding of important topics within economics of competition and regulation policy; the ability to explain and critically evaluate empirical evidence on these topics. Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

- A coursework 

- A final examination 
 

The coursework and examination will enable students to demonstrate their knowledge; their ability to critically evaluate empirical findings; and their ability to apply their knowledge in a real-word context.

Formative assessment and feedback:

Students will receive verbal feedback during the term. Students will receive written feedback on their coursework assessment before the end of term. They will also be given examples of the type of questions that may come  up in the final exam throughout the Semester. Students will be provided with a practice final exam and solutions so they can gauge how well they understand the material. Students are also encouraged to attend office hours for further feedback.

Module aims

• To provide students with a working knowledge of current thinking in regulation and competition policy and its application to business strategy.
• To develop students' critical reasoning skills and help them understanding the tradeoffs between specificity and predictive power with economic models in the context of real-world applications.
• To provide an opportunity to the students to practice anticipating the strategies of others in competitive environments with the assignment. This will demonstrate the shortfalls in predictive power of some standard models.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to:

-Enhance students ability to analyse independently topics within economics of competition and regulation policy
-Enhance students skills in evaluating competition policies and effectively communicate these evaluations in verbal and written form.

The learning and teaching methods include:
- Lectures
- Workshops

Guided learning will also be provided through assigned textbook readings and academic papers on, for instance, identifying the behaviour of cartels in the real world.

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: ECO3061

Other information

The School of Economics is committed to developing graduates with strengths in Employability, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities, Sustainability, and Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module is designed to enhance students' knowledge, skills, and capabilities in the following areas:

Employability:

Students in this module will learn to use standard economic techniques to anticipate the actions of their classmates in a strategic environment. This provides them with experience of acting in a real world competitive setting. In the exam they will be required to express technical arguments clearly, a skill much prized by employers.

Sustainability:

Students will learn about the potential disparities between individually optimal and pareto optimal outcomes, and situations where reducing the options available to consumers can paradoxically increase their well being. The potential for government interventions to alleviate inefficiencies will be explored. 

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2025/6 academic year.