BANAL-ESTANOL A. - Quantitative Methods for Regulation and Competition (20h)

This course provides an introduction to quantitative techniques currently employed by competition and regulatory agencies to aid the conduct of competition policy and regulation.

By the end of the course, you should be comfortable with the use of these techniques and be able to critically evaluate quantitative work carried out by others.This involves three elements: (i) practice in using techniques, (ii) understanding the limitations of the techniques, (iii) practice in applying the results to competition and regulatory situations.

The following topics will be covered:

1. Introduction to the quantitative techniques in competition
2. Statistical tests of prices and price trends
3. Demand Analysis
4. Models of Competition
5. Merger Simulation
6. Introduction to the quantitative techniques in regulation
7. The building blocks approach and the cost of capital
8. Estimating production and cost functions
9. Data envelopment analysis (DEA)
10. Corrected ordinary least squares (COLS) and Stochastic frontier analysis (SFA)

For more information, please consult the ECTS Card.