Customer Reviews

Industrial Organization: Contemporary Theory and Empirical Applications

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

From its first edition, the authors have succeeded in introducing students to the vastly interesting and complicated world of industrial organization. By supplementing the theory with ample relevant empirical examples, the text is a pleasure to read and serves well for self study too. In its scope and exposition it competes with Carlton, while the updated 4th edition provides a good reason to pick it.

Beginning with an awful professor, this semester of industrial organization has been difficult. Most of the time I can get a general idea of what to do from meticulously taken lecture notes and what explanation this book contains. However, in the past few weeks, this book has epically failed. The topic? Mergers. Sure, there are some sample problems in here . . . BUT THERE'S NO EXPLANATION OF WHERE THE NUMBERS IN THOSE EXAMPLES CAME FROM!!! Extremely frustrating, but I figured, whatever, I'll look at the example in the text and one of the practice problems that they give answers for in the back of the book. Oh, wait!! They're identical! I can't even work out what to do from that. Is it asking so much that if you won't explain what to do, you at least make it possible for your reader to derive the necessary steps?

The book is just pages and pages of plain black and white text, important ideas are not summarised in tables or highlighted, this doesnt make the book any easier to read.