COURSE NUMBER: MBA277.1

(Crosslisted with EWMBA Program and Boalt School of Law)

COURSE TITLE: Deals

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3

INSTRUCTOR: Howard Shelanski

E-MAIL ADDRESS: shelanski@mail.law.berkeley.edu

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: MONDAYS 6:00-9:30PM

PREREQUISITE(S): None.

CLASS FORMAT: Lectures and cases.

REQUIRED READINGS: The course materials will consist of a book of cases and

a course reader.

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Short project and final exam.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:

This course will examine why firms engage in certain kinds of transactions and the reasons why governance mechanisms (e.g.integration, joint venture formation, long-term contracting, spot-market exchange) vary across transactions. Why do firms accomplish some transactions through vertical mergers but accomplish others through contracts? What are the attributes of transactions and governance structures that give rise to matches between them? What considerations give rise to whether a deal should be done and then, if so, how it should be structured?In answering questions like those above, this course will examine the roles that transaction costs, economic strategy, and contract law play in influencing the nature and structure of business transactions ranging from mergers and acquisitions to supply contracts, patent licensing, and R&D joint ventures. Outside speakers from industry have been invited to participate.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

Professor Shelanski is a full time member of the law faculty at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. He received both his law degree and his Ph.D. in economics from UC Berkeley. After graduating from law school he served as a law clerk at federal district and circuit courts and for Justice Antonin Scalia at the U.S. Supreme Court. Before joining the Boalt faculty, he was an associate with the Washington, D.C. firm of Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd & Evans. Professor Shelanski's research focuses on industrial organization, telecommunications regulation, and antitrust. During the 1999-2000 academic year, Professor Shelanski was on leave to serve as Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission.During the 1998-1999 academic year he served as a Senior Economist to the President's Council of Economic Advisers.