EFFICIENCY GAINS AND STRUCTURAL REMEDIES IN MERGER CONTROL*

This paper studies the role of structural remedies in merger control in a Cournot setting where (endogenous) mergers are motivated by prospective efficiency gains and must be submitted to an Antitrust Authority (AA) which might require partial divestiture for approval. From a merger policy perspective, this paper's main contribution is two‐fold. First, it shows that if mergers do not involve all firms in the industry, then merger remedies help the AA to increase consumer surplus only if assets are divested to competitors already in the market. Second, it presents a model which clarifies that there can only exist social costs to ‘over‐fixing’ the anticompetitive effects of a merger if merger review policy treats mergers as one‐time events. When a more dynamic view is taken of sequential merger review, then there can never be an ‘over‐fixing’ problem. In this case, however, remedies are shown to be needed to make myopic merger review optimal.     

Commodity price inflation, retail pass-through and market power

When commodity prices rise, wholesalers and retailers of products derived from basic commodities respond by passing along at least a portion of the price increase to consumers. In this paper we examine whether firms respond differently to positive commodity price shocks than to negative commodity price shocks; that is, whether commodity price volatility alters market power. We exploit recent volatility in food commodity prices over the period 2007-2010 to investigate how commodity price shocks translate into market power in two different vertically-structured food product industries: potatoes and fluid milk. For potatoes, we find both wholesale and retail market power decreases (increases) during periods of rising (falling) commodity prices. Moreover, price-cost margins widen a substantially greater degree in response to negative shocks than margins narrow in response to positive shocks, indicating that commodity price volatility increases market power. For fluid milk, we find that market power likewise declines during periods of rising commodity prices; however, market power does not significantly change during periods of falling commodity prices, suggesting that commodity price volatility decreases market power.     

Do remedies affect the efficiency defense? An optimal merger-control analysis

This paper examines the optimal use of remedies and the efficiency defense for merger control. We develop a framework in which merger efficiency gains are endogenously determined and are not observed by the Competition Authority. The possibility of an efficiency defense can push firms to design the merger better, leading to greater efficiency gains. Firms can also submit remedies to the Competition Authority: they interact with the efficiency defense, by reducing the firm's incentive to enhance efficiency. At the same time remedies improve the assessment of the merger, in particular by signaling the true level of efficiency gains. We ask to what extent it may be optimal to make use of both instruments simultaneously, and thus discuss the possibility that the Competition Agency refrain from using one of the instruments to try to improve overall merger-control performance.     

MARKET STRUCTURE AND PRICING STRATEGY OF CHINA'S AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY*

In this study, using market‐level data on quantities, prices' and automobile characteristics from 1995 to 2001, we conduct a market analysis of the Chinese automobile industry under imperfect competition. On the demand side, we apply a nested multinomial logit model to the national market share data in order to ascertain the demand features of China's automobile market. On the supply side, we assume Bertrand behavior to uncover the markups set by automobile manufacturers. Our empirical results suggest that some large automobile manufacturers set high markups, indicating their strong market power in China's automobile market. However, their declining markups in the late 1990's imply a reduction in market control by the major producers.     

MEASURING THE TRUE HARM FROM PRICE‐FIXING TO BOTH DIRECT AND INDIRECT PURCHASERS*

Legal actions by direct and indirect purchasers to recover damages from price‐fixing, common in the United States for years, are now appearing in a number of other countries. Traditional measures of damages are flawed as measures of the true harm suffered and will often significantly understate that true harm. This paper provides measures of the degree of understatement of the true harm when traditional approaches are used and shows how the size of the error depends on the degree of competitiveness of downstream markets. The paper also provides measures of distribution of the true harm between direct and indirect purchasers.     

INFORMATION EXCHANGE AND COMPETITION IN COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS*

We develop a model of information exchange between calling parties. We characterize the equilibrium when two interconnected networks compete by charging both for outgoing and incoming calls. We show that networks have reduced incentives to use off‐net price discrimination to induce a connectivity breakdown when calls originated and received are complements in the information exchange. This breakdown disappears if operators are allowed to negotiate reciprocal access charges. We also study the relationship between sending and receiving retail charges as a function of the level of access charges. We identify circumstances where private negotiations over access charges induce first‐best retail prices.     

SCREENING AND MERGER ACTIVITY*

In our paper, the target of a proposed merger, by setting a reserve price, is able to screen prospective acquirers according to their (expected) ability to generate merger‐specific synergies. Both empirical evidence and many merger models suggest that the difference between high and low‐synergy mergers becomes smaller during booms. Thus, a target's opportunity cost for sorting out relatively less fitting acquirers increases and, hence, targets screen less tightly during booms, which leads to a hike in merger activity. Our screening mechanism not only predicts that merger activity is intense during booms and subdued during recessions but is also consistent with other stylized facts about takeovers and generates novel testable predictions.     

Unionization structure, licensing and innovation

We show the effects of the unionization structure (viz., decentralized and centralized unions) on a firm's incentive for technology licensing and innovation. The incentive for technology licensing is stronger under decentralized unions. We identify circumstances under which the benefit from licensing creates a stronger incentive for innovation under decentralized unions. If the union's preference for employment is high, the benefit from licensing may create higher incentive for innovation under decentralized unions. However, if the union's preference for wage is high enough, the incentive for innovation is higher under a centralized union irrespective of licensing ex-post innovation. If the centralized union decides whether or not to supply workers to all firms, the possibility of higher innovation under decentralized unions increases. We further show that perfectly substitutable workers can be better off under decentralized unions if the labor productivity depends on the unionization structure, which occurs in our analysis when, e.g., licensing after innovation occurs only under decentralized unions or innovation (with no licensing) occurs only under a centralized union.