Industrial organization studies how markets allocate resources, specifically when there are few agents or when there are frictions that render the price-taking paradigm unsuitable. Game theory explores situations in which agents interact strategically and provides a useful foundation for studying many traditional industrial organization topics. The first volume of this wide-ranging Handbook contains original contributions by world-class specialists. It provides up-to-date surveys of the main tools of game theory that are used to model industrial organization topics. The Handbook covers numerous subjects in detail including, among others, the tools of lattice programming, supermodular and aggregative games, monopolistic competition, horizontal and vertically differentiated good models, dynamic and Stackelberg games, entry games, evolutionary games with adaptive players, asymmetric information, moral hazard, and learning and information sharing models. Technical yet accessible, this comprehensive resource will be required reading for both established researchers as well as graduate or advanced undergraduate students in industrial economics and game theory. Contributors incude: R. Amir, A. Attar, G.I. Bischi, F. Bloch, L. Corchon, S. Currarini, C. d'Aspremont, F. Feri, J. Gabszewicz, M. Jensen, L. Julien, F. Lamantia, I. Macho-Stadler, M. Marini, E. Maskin, D. Perez-Castrillo, C. Pimienta, D. Radi, R.A. Ritz, K. Ritzberger, O. Tarola, J. Thisse, A. Urbano, P. Ushchev, X. Vives, J. Zhao

This book presents the theory of Industrial Organization in a unified and concise way. It presents the main models and results in the area, using game theory as a unifying theoretical background. Besides corrections and new sections, the new edition contains a new chapter on games of incomplete information. More than 200 excercises help the reader to understand the results of the book.

The ambition of the theory of imperfectly competitive markets is to explain the working of markets in which the issue of strategic interaction among firms is central. Our analysis of this problem will be based on equilibrium concepts borrowed from Game Theory. This research program arises several questions on its feasibility like the empirical relevance of the results, the substantial theoretical insights obtained in this way, etc. Unfortunately, most of these questions can not be answered in the short run. This book is written in the hope that this research strategy is meaningful, but about its final success no body can tell. Another important question is if simpler models could deliver the essential insights offered by the theory of imperfectly competitive mar kets. This Introduction will be devoted to argue that, currently, there is no alternative to the approach presented in this book. Consider the following fact: A square inch of soil in the Explanada of Ali cante (located in front of the sea, right in the middle of downtown) cost several times more than a square inch of soil in San Vicente del Raspeig (located sev eral miles toward the interior of the peninsula). l How can we explain such a thing? First notice that because of the large quantity of possible traders involved in this market, we can safely assume that any agent has to accept the market price, i. e. is a price-taker."