PhD Course on Exclusive Contracts and Digital Platforms

13 September 2021 14:29

PhD Course on Exclusive Contracts and Digital Platforms

The Department of Economics (NHH) offers an intensive PhD course in October with professor Greg Shaffer and associate professor Özlem Bedre-Defolie.

ECS566 Exclusive Contracts and Digital Platforms

ECTS: 7,5

Date: 4.-7. October 2021

This course aims to provide students with a strong understanding of contracts between vertically related firms (Business to Business contracting). It investigates the use of exclusive contracts in traditional vertical settings, and provides state-of-the-art models of multi-sided platforms in digital markets. With respect to traditional settings, it considers the competitive effects of exclusive contracts paying particular attention to how upstream firms are able to induce the downstream firms to sign them. In markets with digital platforms, the course investigates digital platforms’ optimal pricing and design decisions, and the effects of a platform’s contractual conditions with its sellers on competition between sellers and between platforms.

The types of contracts considered include exclusive-dealing clauses, market-share requirements, loyalty discounts, long-term contracts, and Most-Favored-Customer clauses (MFCs). Contracts with non-linearities that do not explicitly reference rivals are also considered and the question is asked when such contracts may harm competition. Policy implications will be considered throughout the course.

The course is free of charge, and external students can register here. The deadline for registering for the course is flexible.

NB! Some have experienced problems with registering for the course. This issue is now solved.

The course will be digital due to the current corona restrictions.