Inhalt

[ 977PAMEDIFK19 ] KS (*)Decisions in Firms

Versionsauswahl
(*) Leider ist diese Information in Deutsch nicht verfügbar.
Workload Ausbildungslevel Studienfachbereich VerantwortlicheR Semesterstunden Anbietende Uni
6 ECTS M1 - Master 1. Jahr Volkswirtschaftslehre Martin Obradovits 3 SSt Johannes Kepler Universität Linz
Detailinformationen
Quellcurriculum Masterstudium Economic and Business Analytics 2025W
Lernergebnisse
Kompetenzen
(*)Students are able to identify the incentives relevant actors face in an organization and develop a simple game-theoretical model to structure the problem and analyze behavior. Furthermore, students can adapt the insights from standard models to understand the behavior of real-world actors.

Course Goals

The goal of this course is to offer a micro-economic approach to the internal organization of firms. It starts from the simple premise that people respond to incentives, and that they do so in predictable ways. Important questions covered in this course include how to find the right employees, how managers can design incentives to get employees to do what they want them to do, or how the structure of a firm should be designed. The course will enable students to formally analyze the trade-offs firms face when designing incentives and their organizational structure.

Fertigkeiten Kenntnisse
(*)Learning Outcome 2 (LO2): Explain concepts such as strategy, Nash equilibrium, incentive constraints, or the role of future surplus to provide incentives today. Learning Outcome 3 (LO3): Apply game-theoretic tools to solve simple incentive problems. Learning Outcome 4 (LO4): Utilize the learned trade-offs to address real-world organizational issues. (*)Learning Outcome 1 (LO1): Recall basic game-theoretic concepts to address incentive problems in organizations.

Content:

The classes consist of lectures, but also of exercises and student presentations. The following topics are covered: 1. Introduction to Game Theory 2. Moral Hazard: Basic Concepts (risk-incentive trade-off, limited liability, multitasking, teamwork) 3. Informal Incentives in Firms

Beurteilungskriterien (*)Evaluation is based on two grades, one for the student presentation and one for the final exam. Each grade counts 50%, with the exam grade being decisive in case of a tie between two grades. Students can obtain 80 points at the final exam, a minimum of 32 points is needed to obtain a positive grade. It is not necessary to succeed at both the presentation and the final exam to pass the course. For example, if a student obtains a 2 at the presentation and a 5 at the exam, their overall grade will be a 4 (3.5 rounded up, as the exam grade is worse in this case).

The exam grades will be given follows:

PointsGrade
68-801
56-672
44-553
32-434
0-315

Synchronization of learning outcomes and assessments: LO1: Written Exam LO2: Written Exam LO3: Written Exam + Presentation LO4: Presentation

Lehrmethoden (*)The course uses a combination of different teaching methods to

  1. maximize the motivation and attention of the students
  2. address the learning objectives in the didactically best way.

This includes the following:

  • Teacher-centred information inputs, supported by slides and literature
  • “Classroom games,” using websites where students can play games to better understand game-theoretic concepts
  • Student presentations of recent research papers, including discussions about how the results relate to the concepts derived class
  • Development of solutions to exercise problems
Abhaltungssprache Englisch
Literatur (*)
  • Slides
  • Homework exercises and solutions
  • Reading material: Bolton P., and M. Dewatripont (2004), “Contract Theory,” MIT Press; Watson, J. (2013), “Strategy: An Introduction to Game Theory,” W. W. Norton & Co
  • Pointers to additional literature

(All content is provided via Moodle.)

Lehrinhalte wechselnd? Nein
Präsenzlehrveranstaltung
Teilungsziffer 200
Zuteilungsverfahren Zuteilung nach Vorrangzahl