Economics

This course examines marketing strategies and emerging issues in platform business models and the sharing economy. It covers the special features, pricing, customer acquisition and management, trust building, ecosystem and governance of such business models. It also analyzes the business models of representative firms in several key sectors—lodging, ride-hailing, e-commerce, office sharing, and online travel—and the future trends of platform business models and the sharing economy. In addition to qualitative analysis, this course also discusses how data analytics are applied in these businesses and the special skills needed for such business models.

This course offers an in-depth study of the role of research and innovation and its business-based logic in modern economies. It examines two main concepts: understanding investment for innovation and turning innovative ideas into business opportunities.

This course reconsiders the relationship between industrial society and war. Away from the capitalist peace theory, the course reconsiders industrial revolutions and economic reforms through the lens of security. It raises the question of the variety of capitalist models. In a very pragmatic way, it studies the correlation between conflict and the rise of a new economic power. Topics include theories of hegemonic transition, the rise of China and United States trade wars, understanding trade wars in the 21st century and the modern economy, and economic interdependence when security is at stake. At the crossroads of economics, history, and political science, the course adopts a comparative approach with cases taken from the United States, China, Russia, the European Union, and Japan.

This is a graduate level course that is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course is designed to explore the frontiers of interaction between politics and markets. It addresses the factors underlying cross national variation in economic performance and income inequality by investigating the ways in which the international economy affects state autonomy, the welfare state and the politics of income redistribution. The course is structured around two key questions: to what extent do differences in institutional settings shape fundamentally different models of democratic capitalism; what is the role of institutions, firms and labor unions in determining the different arrangements in capitalist countries. This course examines cross-national evolution and variation in welfare states in industrialized countries and especially in Europe. Topics covered include: a comparison of the political economy of welfare states; differences in welfare state models; the extent to which differences in institutional settings, coalition politics, and economics shape fundamentally different models of welfare states. The methodology is comparative with a focus on theoretical models.

This course provides a study of the strategic behavior of firms, particularly the concentration indices and monopolistic behavior found in both single and multi-product firms, and examines how price discrimination facilitates an increase in profits. It explores the strategic interaction between firms in oligopolistic markets, models that include time horizon, capacity restrictions, and product differentiation, and the strategic effect of capacity change on firm entry decision or the effect of location decision on firm market power. Students are expected to have completed coursework in microeconomics and game theory

This course covers the basic principles of corporate finance and accounting. The course covers the study of key financial concepts, like the time value of money and arbitrage, the valuation of major securities like bonds and stocks, the financial risk and portfolio theory and the CAPM, as well as the accounting principles and reporting and the financial statements, their nature, content, use, and analysis. The nature of the course is technical and quantitative and employs tutorials and the use of exercises and applications to practice the introduced topics. To make the course more hands-on, we stress the importance of using Excel in solving financial problems, which reflects its wide use in business life. Assumed previous knowledge: for students without an economics background this is an intensive and challenging course. To the extent students lack knowledge of Mathematics and Excel, students are expected to compensate for this on their own.