New Perspectives on Industrial Organization

by Tremblay, Victor J.; Tremblay, Carol Horton

• ISBN13: 9781461432401
• ISBN10: 1461432405
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-07-20
• Publisher: Springer Nature

Summary

This book covers the main topics that students need to learn in a course on Industrial Organization. It reviews the classic models and important empirical evidence related to the field. However, it will differ from prior textbooks in two ways. First, this book incorporates contributions from behavioral economics and neuroeconomics, providing the reader with a richer understanding of consumer preferences and the motivation for many of the business practices we see today. This newly recognized and growing area of research shows that consumers sometimes make errors and frequently have more complex preferences than traditional theory suggests. The book discusses how firms exploit consumers who are prone to making mistakes and who suffer from cognitive dissonance, attention lapses, and bounded rationality, for example. This will help explain why firms invest in persuasive advertising, offer 30-day free trials, offer money-back guarantees, and engage in other observed phenomena that cannot be explained by the traditional approaches to industrial organization.