Economics of markets and organizations

How do employees respond to incentives? Which applicant is most attractive when several apply to fill a job vacancy? Why and how do governments intervene in markets? Finding the right answers to these and other questions is of great importance for managers and policy makers who want to fully understand the economics of organizations and markets. Organizations and markets are vital institutions in all modern societies. This book examines how organizations and markets work and how managers and governments can intervene to let them work better. Questions like the above will be examined by applying tools from microeconomics - including game theory, information economics, and contract theory. Economics of Organizations and Markets is aimed at students of economics as well as of business. The text discusses how those tools can be applied to build quantitative models that can provide convincing theory about the way organizations and markets are organized. The insights obtained from the models will be valuable to the professional careers of students. This book contains the following key features: step-by-step analysis of quantitative models, numerous real-world illustrations of the theory, a discussion of the main features of European competition law, and end-of-chapter exercises that are closely related to the models analyzed in the main text. In addition, each chapter contains an in-depth case study which shows that the issues discussed in the chapter are not just of theoretical interest but that they are relevant for decision making in practice. This book also includes an access code for the study website Pearson XTRA: this site contains an eText, a keyword trainer and extra exercises and questions. For teachers, the site contains supporting tools like PowerPoint presentations and a teacher's guide. Sander Onderstal is associate professor in Industrial Organization and Experimental Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Amsterdam. He has published broadly in international journals on subjects like auctions, public procurement, incentive contracts, experimental economics, and charitable fundraising.