产品差异化下的纵向限制及其竞争效应

垄断制造商在品牌差异度足够低时有激励实施纵向限制,但这是以消费者剩余和社会福利为代价的,而且损失都随着商品差异度特别是品牌内差异度的提高而提高.因此,纵向限制反垄断应该关注限制方非价格竞争程度较低、特别是同时被限制方非价格竞争程度较高的情况.     

GOVERNANCE AND VERTICAL INTEGRATION IN TEAM SPORTS

Antitrust law distinguishes vertical and horizontal restraints. A horizontal restraint is one which exists between competing firms supplying rival products in a market, and a vertical restraint is one which exists between firms that jointly contribute to supplying a particular product in a market. Horizontal agreements receive much closer antitrust scrutiny because they often enable firms to limit competition at the expense of consumers, while vertical restraints may be legal or illegal depending on whether they tend to enhance or reduce competition or the exploitation of market power. This paper argues that there are important vertical restraints that operate in sports leagues which have been mostly neglected in the literature but have a significant impact. We focus on intraleague restraints, where member clubs of a league agree to control the organization of league competition, and interleague restraints, where horizontal agreement such as the Reserve Clause relies on agreements not to compete for players competing in senior or junior leagues. ( JEL L83, L42, L44)     

Comparing Horizontal Mergers Under Cournot with Bertrand Competitions

Taking the product substitutability into account, this paper considers the horizontal mergers under Cournot with Bertrand competition. Firstly, the big market size indicates non‐intention to merge. Secondly, independent goods indicate indifferences between the quantity competition and price competition. Finally, firms under quantity competition are more willing to merge than under price competition. The antitrust authority is more inclined to approve the merger under quantity competition than that under price competition.     

Antitrust Enforcement and Non-Enforcement as a Barrier to Import in the Japanese Automobile Industry

Foreign automobile manufacturers long have found it difficult to compete in the Japanese automobile market. For decades, governmentally imposed restraints prevented foreign manufacturers from gaining a foothold in the Japanese market. In recent decades, these governmental restrictions have been replaced by private restraints which create equally formidable barriers to entry. Many private restraints persist despite repeated informal investigations and administrative guidance by the Japan Fair trade Commission (JFTC). The endurance of these private restraints raises the question of what mechanisms may be available to make the Japanese automobile market more contestable. While vigorous and transparent enforcement of Japan's Antimonopoly Law by the JFTC is the preferred mechanism, other mechanisms for alleviating these private restraints include the extraterritorial enforcement of U.S. antitrust laws by U.S. antitrust enforcement authorities, mediation by the OECD or the enforcement of an international competition code in an international forum.     

Trade policy in the face of price and non-price strategies

When selling their products domestically or internationally, firms rely on more than just price as a strategic variable. They also rely on non-price instruments such as advertising and/or R&D investments. Any trade policy that affects or limits the use of one variable will likely have strategic consequences for the use of all the others. Using a Hotelling model with vertical differentiation we focus on how trade policy barriers alter price and non-price competition on the goods market. The main results are as follows: first, no matter whether the trade restriction (tariff) is placed on the non-price instrument or on the good itself, the foreign (domestic) firm prefers to increase (decrease) its use of its pricing tool and give up some of (increase) its use of the non-price instrument. Second, in the presence of a non-price instrument, tariffs do not always lead both firms to increase their price: it can lead the foreign firm to decrease its (final) price.     

Open access policies, regulated charges and non-price discrimination in telecommunications

Open access policies in telecommunications, including interconnection and unbundling, are implemented by regulators in an effort to increase competition in the sector. Lack of cooperation from incumbents is pervasive, given their incentives to engage in non-price discrimination and the moral hazard resulting from the inability of regulators to monitor the contract. We build a relationship between the access price and non-price discrimination, neither assuming a pre-determined market strategic interdependence or a specific demand function format. When the access charge is liberalized, the incentive for non-price discrimination disappears. It may be optimal for the regulator to set a second-best regulated access price to avoid non-price discrimination.     

纵向结构与投入品竞价合谋的悖论分析--日资配件企业“垄断协议”案的若干思考

2013年以来，跨国公司主导的价格合谋和价格歧视受到了中国反垄断机构的调查和处罚。文章以汽车配件行业中“日资企业”的价格垄断案为线索，构建了一个纵向股权关联下投入品价格合谋和集团内转移定价的理论模型，通过静态比较分析发现：关联企业之间的价格投标合谋并不符合“利润最大化”的目标，而是跨国公司作为实际控制人在上下游股权比例和盈利能力不对等的条件下，将下游整车合资企业的利润转移到上游配件企业的一种手段。文章从股权比例和企业运营模式的层面论证了利润转移假说的合意性，并结合主要细分市场的结构和利润关系，对“结构－合谋”原理所面临的现实矛盾进行了深入分析。文章的主要政策建议是：中国汽车产业的反垄断立法要实现从行为惩罚到规则干预的转化，要适当增加产业组织分析的证据以提高执法的科学水准，需要更多地使用合理推定原则以避免对企业理性行为的不当干预。     

Price discrimination and price dispersion in a duopoly

This paper analyses the problem of price discrimination in a market where consumers have heterogeneous preferences both over a horizontal parameter (brand) and a vertical one (quality). Discriminatory contracts are characterized for different market structures. It is shown that price dispersion, i.e. the observed range of prices for each class of customers, increases almost everywhere as competition is introduced in the market.     

寡占市场下的广告成因探究

依照微观经济学和产业组织理论,高度集中产业市场中的寡头厂商往往会在价格变量上形成暗中或默契的价格串谋,使产业市场处在一种“准完全垄断”的状态。广告是企业主要的非价格竞争变量之一,重复博弈的结果使得寡头厂商能够走出囚徒困境(放弃产品的广告宣传),而垄断利润的存在导致第三方潜在进入的威胁,在位寡头厂商必然会联合起来进行抵制,通过广告串谋提高市场进入壁垒。     

Product market competition,R&D composition and growth

We revisit the relation between product market competition and leading-edge growth in a model where horizontal and vertical innovations simultaneously occur. We show that competition exerts an important effect on the composition of aggregate R&D (vertical versus horizontal). In fact, when product market competition gets more intense, a larger fraction of R&D is engaged in improving the quality of products; this occurs at the expense of a lower rate of horizontal innovation. This effect, which is absent in the basic endogenous growth model with only vertical innovations, may overturn the inverse relation between product market competition and leading-edge growth found in prior theoretical models.     

Endogenous market structures and antitrust policy

I revisit the post-Chicago approach to antitrust issues examining markets whose structure is endogenous. The usual analysis of oligopolies with strategic interactions and an exogenous number of firms is extended to the case of endogenous entry, which determines the degree of market power. The role of predation is evaluated within a generalization of the contestability theory to strategic interactions. Endogenous entry requires a revision of our understanding of the role of incumbents in pricing, producing in the presence of network externalities, bundling products, price discriminating, and delegating to retailers through vertical restraints: when entry is endogenous, leaders adopt aggressive strategies typically without exclusionary purposes and without reducing welfare. Endogenous entry has also implications for the analysis of mergers, that take place only if they create enough cost efficiencies and do not harm consumers, beneficial concentration, technology transfers, and cartels. The spirit of the policy recommendations of the Chicago school is broadly supported by our analysis.     

Vertical Restraints and Market Access

This paper analyzes vertical restraints in relation to market access issues. In Section II we briefly review the recent three major trade conflicts between Japan and the USA in light of vertical restraints. In Section III we review the major policy lessons of the economics literature of vertical restraints, and analyze whether we need a special treatment for vertical restraints abroad for a market access reason. In Section IV we evaluate the policy options towards foreign foreclosure and suggest that nondiscriminatory application of foreign or home competition policy should be the mechanism to address such concern instead of trade policy actions such as voluntary import expansions.     

Oil explains all: desirable organisation of the Russian fuel markets (on the data of three waves of antitrust cases against oil companies)

This article considers the mutual influence of antitrust enforcement in the petroleum product markets and competition legislation in Russia. An analysis of infringement decisions by the Russian competition authority allows us to understand the perceived goals of economic policy in this sector. The shift from antitrust investigations and infringement decisions to a very specific set of remedies is explained by the desire to maintain low retail prices under increasing concentration without price subsidisation or promotion of entry at the refining stage of the value chain. The article highlights the specific use of antitrust legislation to maintain low fuel prices and support independent retailing companies. We also note the limitation this policy faces. The goals and effects of antitrust enforcement in the industry explain, in turn, the specific path of competition legislation development in Russia.     

Price effects of airline consolidation: evidence from a sample of transatlantic markets

We offer an analysis of price effects of airline consolidation on a sample of transatlantic markets. While joining airlines’ networks through code-sharing decreases interline fares by up to 22.5% relative to those of non-consolidated carriers, and alliance membership also produces cost savings that decrease fares by up to 10%, antitrust immunity has no significant price effect for interline trips. Evidence that antitrust immunity increases fares on non-stop routes where it decreases competition is not robust. While total effect of airline consolidation on interline fares is about the same as indicated by previous studies, we suggest different sources of this effect. This paper is the first one presenting empirical evidence of no significant price effects of antitrust immunity.      

Price dispersion in the private health insurance industry: The case of Catalonia

This paper presents a vertical and horizontal product differentiation model that explains price dispersion among different kinds of health care insurance firms. Our model shows large insurance firms engaging in price competition with small mutual organizations that serve only a local area and charge lower premiums. We found that, although the market allows the entry of an excessive number of firms, the presence of local insurance companies increases social welfare by increasing the range of products available to consumers. Our conclusions are applicable to OECD countries in general although we rely on Catalonia's data.     

欧盟合并控制竞争执法中创新损害问题研究

创新是欧盟竞争法中重要的非价格竞争要素之一，在分析企业合并对创新的影响时，欧盟委员会传统上主要从与特定及明确产品市场相关联的潜在竞争角度进行评估。近几年的执法实践表明，欧盟竞争执法范围已经扩展到具有动态性的创新竞争领域，开始关注无形的创新损害，并通过个案审查逐渐在理论基础、制度依据、执法政策、分析框架和方法等方面形成相对体系化的应对方案。欧盟应对创新问题的竞争执法经验为当下我国反垄断法修订以及执法完善提供了良好参考。     

The strategic value of partial vertical integration

We investigate the strategic incentives for partial vertical integration, namely, partial ownership agreements between manufacturers and retailers, when retailers privately know their costs and engage in price competition with differentiated goods. The partial misalignment between the profit objectives within a partially integrated manufacturer–retailer hierarchy implies a higher retail price than under full integration. This ‘information vertical effect’ translates into a ‘competition horizontal effect’: the partially integrated hierarchy's commitment to a higher price induces the competitor to increase its price, which strategically relaxes competition. Our analysis provides implications for vertical merger policy and theoretical support for the recently documented empirical evidence on partial vertical acquisitions.     

Cooperation In R&D With Spillovers And Delegation Of Sales ∗

Cooperation in several phases of the innovation process is viewed by antitrust authorities with suspicion. They face the dilemma between providing the right incentives for the appro-priability of returns to R&D and the risks of diminishing product market competition. The current legislation in the European Union and the United States gives special treatment to cooperation in R&D and the joint exploitation of results (extended cooperation).

We study several collusive regimes for a class of examples in which vertical relations are explicitly introduced. Regarding antitrust policy implications we fmd that: a) there is an ana-lytical justification to a ‘rule of reason’ treatment for extended cooperation in research joint ventures and, b) individual exemptions, though restrictive of competition, might be welfare improving.     

Horizontal mergers and product quality

We study the effects of a horizontal merger when firms compete on price and quality. In a Salop framework with three symmetric firms, several striking results appear. First, the merging firms reduce quality but possibly also price, whereas the outside firm increases both price and quality. As a result, the average price in the market increases, but also the average quality. Second, the outside firm benefits more than the merging firms from the merger, and the merger can be unprofitable for the merger partners, i.e., the “merger paradox” may appear. Third, the merger always reduces total consumer utility (though some consumers may benefit), but total welfare can increase due to endogenous quality cost savings. In a generalized framework with n firms, we identify two key factors for the merger effects: (i) the magnitude of marginal variable quality costs, which determines the nature of strategic interaction and (ii) the cross‐quality and cross‐price demand effects, which determines the intensity of price relative to quality competition. These findings have implications for antitrust policy in industries where quality is a key strategic variable for the firms.