Aims

The goal of this module is to provide students with contemporary knowledge on how food markets operate and offer them rationales to make adequate strategy decisions. In line with developments of food markets in the past 30 years, the module will focus on differentiated food markets and will build on industrial economic models of market strategy.

The module has two sections: 1) in the first section of the module the students will learn theoretic frameworks to understand firm marketing decisions; 2) in the second section the students will learn about empirical models and will have the opportunity to apply their knowledge on a study of a sample of agro-food industries.

Outline Of Syllabus

The module covers the following topics:
* Strategic management vs business economics: What is purpose of businesses?
* Revision of theory of the firm and market structure
* Agency and contract theory
* Introduction to game theory
* Relational contracts and trust
* Product differentiation
* Price discrimination
* Marketing communications
* Economics of food distribution
* Innovation

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Lectures convey the key economic theories that are relevant to food markets analysis.
The practicals are structured to help students consolidate and apply the theoretical concepts through case
studies and flip class methods. These sessions should be timetabled on a fortnight basis.
Students are encouraged to develop their understanding through further reading and relate the topics covered
to industries/topics of their interest.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The students will complete an end of semester exam, intended to assess how students understood and apply the theoretical concepts presented in class to real market examples.