This lecture will emphasis on the following topics:

• Overview of the historical context: from the industrial to the digital economy

• Economics of information: search and price search engines, reputation, privacy

• Market structure and economic performance: strategic pricing of digital goods (two-sided markets and platforms, price dispersion and price discrimination, bundling information goods, etc.)

• Assessing the effects of digital technologies on the way in which consumers and firms interact (network effects, monopolies in the context of big tech, etc.)

• Analyzing the incentives for firms to invest in new technologies and for consumers to adopt them

• Identifying the channels by which digitalization affects employment, economic growth, and inequality

• Sketching possible ways to measure the welfare effects of new technologies

• Discussing the advantages and disadvantages of economic policy measures designed to help those who are negatively affected by technology adoption