Effect of R&D and Market Concentration on Merger Outcomes – An Event Study of US Horizontal Mergers

This study examines the pattern of abnormal returns for merging companies and rivals, to determine investor expectations regarding the impact of horizontal mergers challenged by the government. Prior studies have indicated that the government may have challenged efficiency-enhancing mergers, as evidenced by the pattern of abnormal returns to rivals during merger events. This study uses a two-stage regression approach to examine those patterns, using challenged mergers from 1997 to 2007, and finds evidence of potential price effects from approved mergers. The results also show the mergers to have differential effects depending on the level of R&D, market concentration, and product sales.     

Economic Issues in the Antitrust Assessment of Hospital Competition: Overview

Rapid consolidation in the hospital industry, as health care markets respond to consumer pressures for more cost-effective delivery of health care services, has focused increased attention on antitrust enforcement theories and actions. This paper reviews the Federal agency challenges of four recent hospital mergers that have all been denied by the courts, but for varying reasons. Questions raised include the appropriate definition of the product and geographic markets, the extent of realizable merger-specific efficiencies and the influence of non-profit status on hospital behavior. The lack of conclusive empirical economic evidence on these topics undoubtedly contributes to the current divergence of opinion among regulators, courts and hospitals. This paper also identifies how each of the subsequent papers in this special issue contributes valuable findings to inform the lively debate.     

Effects of Joint Outsourcing on Consumer Welfare

This work models outsourcing under oligopolistic competition with nonlinear costs. I show that in a covered market, if each firm’s marginal cost before outsourcing is lower than the industry’s average cost, outsourcing leads to increased prices and decreased consumer welfare. Joint outsourcing is more profitable if the firms’ equilibrium quantity produced is in the economies of scale part of their cost curve.     

Motion Pictures Industry: Economies of Scale and Trade

Recent economic theories find industrial structure to be an important determinant of the pattern of trade. In the motion picture industry, economies of scale and imperfect competition, in addition to cultural sovereignty, are conditions sometimes used to justify protectionist policies. This paper examines the significance of the capital-labor ratio, VCRs, market share, tariffs, domestic market size, taste similarities, stars and domestically popular films on international trade in the industry. The results indicate that stars and blockbusters in the domestic market do not seem to influence consumption of films overseas, however, external economies of scale are present in the industry, tariffs are effective trade barriers in the industry, and VCRs increase the chances of piracy.     

全球交易所的竞争:市场结构的变化

本文运用国际金融市场特别是期货市场的统计数据和案例材料,从横向竞争、纵向竞争、会员资格的开放和会员的多样化、竞争的资本密集程度的提高这几个方面,总结了交易所面临的竞争挑战.对美国占全球期货市场份额变化的分析表明,传统金融市场强国逐步丧失了绝对的垄断地位.但全球期货期权交易市场集中度的提高,却揭示了当前交易所服务市场竞争格局的复杂性.     

The Impact of Market Environment on Excess Capacity and the Cost of an Empty Hospital Bed

The health economics literature contains contradictory empirical findings regarding the cost of an empty hospital bed. Recent empirical studies which account for the endogeneity of reserve capacity produce high estimates of these costs, while earlier studies and industry experts maintain that empty beds are cheap. This paper provides evidence which helps to reconcile the controversy. The cost of excess bed capacity will depend upon staffing levels of different types of labor in the hospital. We provide a relationship between capacity utilization, productive efficiency, and the cost of empty beds, and then compare the utilization of bed capacity in four very different market environments. These are the highly regulated, public Norwegian hospitals, who face very little competitive pressure, and the unregulated, private California hospitals, divided into three groups with variation in ownership and competitive environment. We find considerable variation in input utilization and excess capacity, with different implications for the cost of empty beds across the hospital groups and their respective market environments. Our findings suggest that the cost of an empty bed varies with market conditions, hence the seemingly contradictory findings in the literature are to be expected. Our findings also suggest an interesting area of future research: the impact of managed care on reserve capacity in hospitals.     

Spatial Interaction,Spatial Multipliers and Hospital Competition

The hospital competition literature shows that estimates of the effect of local market structure (concentration) on pricing (competition) are sensitive to geographic market definition. Our spatial lag model approach effects smoothing of the explanatory variables across the discrete market boundaries, resulting in robust estimates of the impact of market structure on hospital pricing, which can be used to estimate the full effect of changes in prices inclusive of spillovers that cascade through the neighboring hospital markets. The full amount, generated by the spatial multiplier effect, is a robust estimate of the impacts of market factors on hospital competition. We contrast ordinary least squares and spatial lag estimates to demonstrate the importance of robust estimation in analysis of hospital market competition. In markets where concentration is relatively high before a proposed merger, we demonstrate that Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) can lead to the wrong policy conclusion while the more conservative lag estimates do not.     

Advertising Expenditure,Enplanement, and Market Concentration

This paper investigates the long‐run relationship between advertising expenditure and enplanement (representing the number of passengers boarding an aircraft), advertising expenditure across carriers, and advertising expenditure and market concentration for the six largest US airlines. Advertising expenditure is evidenced to be strategic, although not clearly effective at increasing enplanement, suggesting collusive behavior. Advertising is also evidenced to be, for the most part, balancing in nature across rival carriers. Further tests suggest a positive and linear relationship with positive bi‐directional causality between advertising and market concentration. This paper’s findings raise three important questions. First, if advertising is not clearly effective at increasing enplanement, then why advertise? Second, if advertising increases market concentration, then shouldn’t airline activities be under some degree of scrutiny, or even be partially regulated? Third, could airline advertising be important in explaining higher post‐deregulation fares?     

中国制造业的市场集中、地理集聚与企业绩效

本文研究我国制造业的市场结构与地理分布对企业全要素生产率的影响.以中国工业企业数据库的大样本数据为基础,采用LP法计算企业生产率,构造市场集中度指标和地方化经济、城市化经济两个集聚指标,进行了多方位的计量检验.研究结果表明,制造业的市场集中不利于企业生产率的提高,代表专业化水平的地方化经济促进了企业生产率的提升,度量行业间多样化集聚的城市化经济对企业生产率没有显著的影响.市场集中对出口企业的负面影响不明显,控制市场集中和地理集聚后,出口企业生产率高于非出口企业,出口的“生产率悖论”并不存在.     

开放条件下我国服务行业市场集中状况及发展趋势

长期以来,我国服务业市场一直处于高度垄断或过度竞争的状态,严重影响了服务业的发展和企业效率的提高;但随着我国加入世贸组织和跨国公司的大量涌入,服务业市场结构正发生着显著的变化。本文在总结了国内外相关研究成果的基础上,重点研究了我国若干服务行业的市场集中率,并由此提出了在开放条件下,我国服务行业的市场集中状况、特点及未来发展趋势。     

Trade Liberalization,Nature of Mergers and Employment

This paper investigates the roles of comparative advantage and market size in the international location of manufacturing production. Building on the conventional Helpman and Krugman (1985) general equilibrium framework, our analysis extends the present literature by incorporating both effects in the same model, while allowing trade costs to vary almost continuously from autarky to free trade. The main result of our exercise is that market size effects offset comparative advantage if countries have similar factor proportions. A large country with a slight comparative disadvantage in manufacturing production may thus be a net exporter of manufactures. A small country with the same comparative disadvantage would be a net importer of manufactures. When countries are very dissimilar in their relative factor endowments, land-abundant countries specialize in the production of food, irrespective of market size, if manufactures are a labour-intensive sector. Labour-rich countries of any size are manufacture cores. However, land-abundant countries with large markets can sustain a domestic manufacturing industry until trade costs are very low, and in some cases only specialize in agriculture at free trade.     

Can Mergers to Monopoly,Price Fixing,and Market‐Division Agreements Raise Welfare?

Naked market division, price fixing agreements and mergers which result in dominant positions have long been opposed by the courts and the government because of the high likelihood that they will result in a reduction in output and an increase in price. We show that the opposite may be true if the market is characterized by marketing spillovers. When marketing investment is required to educate consumers about the general capabilities or qualities of a product, marketing efforts by one producer will benefit rival producers. A theoretical model of these types of markets shows that marketing spillovers can forestall entry altogether or force incumbent firms to engage in ‘limit marketing’ that leaves the market underserved from a welfare‐maximizing perspective. Under these circumstances, market output and social welfare are potentially raised not only through horizontal agreements among competitors, but also through cost‐raising strategies and commitments to predatory behavior by incumbent firms.     

Unrestricted Entry and Nonprice Competition: The Case of Technological Adoption in Hospitals

Medical technology adoption is a major contributor to rising health care expenditures in the US. Multiple market failures provide incentives for hospitals to adopt technologies. Unrestricted entry may result in excess capacity and reductions in output that are inefficient with respect to cost and quality. We analyze the effects of hospital entry in the market for coronary artery bypass graft surgery on the number of procedures performed at both the market and firm levels, using California data from 1983 to 1990. We test the hypothesis that entry has differential effects on hospital output in a market with nonprice competition, depending on market structure. Results show that as the proximity of the nearest competitor increases with entry, hospital output declines. Holding distance to the nearest competitor constant, increasing the number of competitors results in a smaller, but still significant, decrease in output. When there are few incumbents nearby, however, output does not change significantly with entry, suggesting "business-augmenting" effects that result in increased physician referrals offset much of the conventional "businessstealing" effects.     

The Effects of Changes in Implicit Energy Costs on Housing Prices

The determinants of housing sale price per square foot were estimated for houses sold in two time periods, 1971–1976 and 1977–1980 using hedonic price theory and regression analysis. Natural gas consumption did not affect sale prices in the first period, but higher consumption levels reduced sale price per square foot in the second period up to $88 ccf/sf year. At higher levels the sale price rose with increases in gas consumption.     

比较优势理论与期货市场竞争发展格局

期货市场是以现货市场为基础的衍生市场.根据比较优势及相关理论,期货市场的比较优势主要来自于所在国家或地区的要素条件、需求状况、竞争对手及产业政策.世界期货市场以及美国、欧洲、日本等国家或地区内期货市场竞争格局的变迁充分证明,具有比较优势的国家和地区或以具有比较优势的产业为基础的期货市场,在竞争中将因此而形成相应的比较优势.不同国家或地区间、一个国家或地区内期货市场所处的环境各不相同,因此发展期货市场必须根据所在国家或地区的环境特点,推行与之相适应的发展模式和产业政策,以形成自身的比较优势,在竞争中获取有利地位.     

市场可达性、空间集聚经济与高铁站区经济发展

近年来,新城建设成为地方政府重要的城市发展政策。在高铁网络迅速发展的背景下,新设高铁站成为各地新城建设的重要载体。在新经济地理学中,市场可达性是影响企业和居民空间集聚的重要因素。本文从城市间和城市内部两方面探讨市场可达性对高铁通车后站区经济发展的影响。基于匹配到约1平方公里栅格的全球夜间灯光数据和2009—2014年新设高铁站数据,研究发现高铁通车后,高铁站区的经济活动密度相对于邻近区域并没有显著提升。利用高铁、铁路、公路网络构造了随时间可变的城市可达性指标,并利用高铁站到市中心距离衡量到城市就业中心的可达性,结果显示,高铁站区的经济发展显著依赖于城市可达性和市中心可达性。上述结果说明,新城经济发展必须重视对于来自城市外部和内部的集聚经济的利用。尽管高铁带来的城市可达性提升能为周边区域创造经济集聚,但受制于远离市中心的区位选择,低水平的城市中心可达性大大限制了目前高铁站区经济的发展,从而造成高铁新城投资效率低下等问题。     

The Effect of Cross‐Border Mergers and Acquisitions on Earnings Quality: Evidence from China

Despite the fruitful research on the motives and outcomes of cross‐border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) of Chinese multinational corporations (MNCs), there has been scant research on the impact of cross‐border M&As on corporate governance. In this article, we fill the research gap by exploring whether cross‐border M&As may lead to an improvement in corporate governance of Chinese acquirers. In particular, we examine the impact of cross‐border M&As on earnings quality of Chinese MNCs. We find that the acquisition of a target firm from a developed country leads to a significant improvement on the acquirer's earnings quality. In comparison, the acquisition of a target from an emerging market does not have such an impact. Our results are robust to various corporate governance measures, alternative econometric methods, and controls of relevant firm characteristics and macroeconomic variables. Finally, we show that the effect of cross‐border M&As on earnings quality is more pronounced in non‐state‐owned enterprises (non‐SOEs) that have conducted large M&A deals. Our article offers new insight to the international business literature on latecomer perspective and liability of foreignness. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

FTA背景下市场规模、产品差异与关税保护——基于空间经济学模型的解析

在缔结自由贸易协定(FTA)时,大多数缔约方对本方竞争力弱的产业往往采取关税保护措施。在确定需要保护的本方产业时大多数缔约方往往采用贸易竞争度等方法而忽略考虑了缔约双方的市场规模和产品特性。这往往会造成保护失当或达不到预期的保护效果。本文采用空间经济学模型,对市场规模、产品差异化程度与关税保护的效果之间进行模拟分析。通过分析得出:虽然关税能够防止本方产业的流出,但是对市场规模小的缔约方来说效果有限;市场规模小的缔约方无需对产品差异化程度小的产品采取高关税保护措施而只需对产品差异化程度大的产品采取高关税保护措施。     

试论我国货币基金的发展及其政策问题

货币基金是伴随货币市场发展而出现的新型金融产品,目前,我国各有关方面也在积极推进货币基金的开展.货币基金依赖于货币市场的一定发展,有着同其他共同基金与金融产品不同的特点,尤其是在税收制度、流动性安排方面,都有其独特之处.即使在发达市场上,货币基金也并非没有风险,其投资组合也有着既定的原则,对此,需要正确认识.由于我国目前的货币市场较为落后,银行储蓄以及中央银行对商业银行的信用往来制度尚不同于发达国家,因而货币基金在我国的引进就面临着一些急需在政策上予以协调和明确的问题,否则,推出的货币基金将很难在短期内有效运行,也可能起不到应有的预期效果.