Merger Policy in the United States: A Reconsideration

Review of Industrial Organization -     

EU Commission versus Volkswagen: New Evidence on Price Differentiation in the European Car Market

This paper is motivated by the large fine the EuropeanCommission imposed on Volkswagen in January 1998 forobstructing sales to foreigners. The first partdiscusses the competitive framework in which the carsector operates, especially the exclusive dealershipsystem. This is followed by a detailed examination ofthe degree of price-differentiation across nationalmarkets by 24 major manufacturers. The evidencereveals VW and Audi not to be special cases. Thisfinding implies that the Commission should reconsiderits own block exemption if it wants to establisha more competitive car market along the principles ofthe Common Market.     

Geographic Market Definition in the Merger Guidelines: A Retrospective Analysis

Since the initial Merger Guidelines in 1968, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission have revised their merger enforcement screen over the course of six versions. This article examines the evolution of the geographic market component of the Guidelines and the economic implications of changing standards of market delineation on merger enforcement. Using an illustration from the beer industry, we chronicle the development of geographic market definition and its varying effects on merger enforcement over the past 50 years.     

Market Delineation under the Merger Guidelines: Monopoly Cases and Alternative Approaches

Despite the well-known Cellophane fallacy, the Merger Guidelines' market-delineation paradigm, which examines the effects of price increases above the prevailing level, has substantial utility in many monopoly cases. For monopoly cases in which the Guidelines' approach is not appropriate due to the Cellophane fallacy, no modification of that approach appears to solve the problem is a useful way. More direct methods for assessing monopoly power are likely to be preferable to structural analysis in many monopoly and merger cases.     

电价改革：盘点2004

2004年的中国电力,有很多值得盘点的辉煌,面对2005年,我们有理由充满更多的期望。2004年12月24日下午,本刊邀请了九位专家,召开“2004年电价改革专题座谈会”。他们分别来自政府部门、研究机构、电网企业和发电企业(见座谈会专家名单),围绕“电价改革”这个共同的主题,全方位、多角度地作了十分精彩的盘点和展望。由于篇幅所限,本刊只能摘其发言的精华,围绕专题整理综述,以飨读者。     

New Labour's Reform of Britain's Employment Law: The Devil is not only in the Detail but in the Values and Policy Too

The Labour government's goal of social partnership embodies a particular view of the appropriate role of labour within the employment relationship, which requires the marginalization of trade unionism as an autonomous force. Its programme of employment law reform combines a dual focus: first, the reaffirmation of measures that weaken workers' collective power through the exclusion of autonomous trade unionism, and second, initiatives to regulate the labour market, strengthen workers' rights within the employment relationship, and include enterprise‐confined, cooperative unions as subordinate 'partners'. However, the second policy dimension has been diluted because of the commitment to free‐market values.     

The evolution of the telecommunications policy agenda: Forty years of articles in Telecommunications Policy

This paper investigates the evolution of the telecommunications policy agenda by means of text mining forty years –from 1976 to 2016– of papers in the journal Telecommunications Policy. Text mining techniques help identify the key topics, the dominant combinations of concepts and the main areas of research within this multidisciplinary –technical, economic, social, policy– discipline. In addition they depict an evolution of the policy agenda more nuanced than the conventional public service, pre-competition and post-liberalisation stages typical of telecommunications. Also, in combination with bibliometric information, the results display the relationships between areas of research and methodologies, countries and authors’ background, all together providing a deeper understanding of the past, present and future avenues for research in telecommunications policy.     

Merger Policy at the Margin: Western Refining’s Acquisition of Giant Industries

In May 2007, a United States District Court declined to grant the Federal Trade Commission a preliminary injunction that would have blocked the merger of two petroleum refiners that served Albuquerque, New Mexico, and surrounding areas. This study compares estimates of the post-merger price effect to the price effects that were predicted by economic experts on both sides of the case. I find little scope to interpret the evidence as consistent with an anticompetitive post-merger price effect. I also highlight the difficulties that are involved in econometrically identifying small effects even with an abundance of pricing data.     

Disentangling the consensus frame of food security: The case of the EU Common Agricultural Policy reform debate

This article addresses which food security frames can be identified in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2013 reform process, and which actors deploy particular food security frames. The concept of frames refers to relatively distinct and coherent sets of meaning attributed to a concept, such as food security. The article shows that in the European Union (EU) food security is a consensus frame which can be broken down in six conflicting and overlapping sub-frames and which has complicated the debates about the future of the CAP. We demonstrate that during the CAP-reform debates of 2009–2012 a variety of food security arguments were deployed by a broad range of stakeholders, who attached different meanings and made different claims about the relationship between the CAP and food security. Inductive frame analysis reveals that the consensus frame of food security can be broken down into six conflicting and overlapping sub-frames: (1) the productionist frame, (2) the environmental frame, (3) the development frame, (4) the free trade frame, (5) the regional frame, and (6) the food sovereignty frame. Each of these frames was invoked by a specific group of stakeholders, whereby the productionist and environmental frames were deployed most often. The European Commission, meanwhile, invoked various frames at the same time in its communications. As a result of these various framings of the relationship between the CAP and food security, a clear political vision on this relationship is lacking. We conclude that politicians and policymakers may need to develop a coherent vision on what food security entails, and on how the CAP could contribute to both European and global food security.     

新一轮电价改革破题

●2003年是我国新一轮电价改革的起点。●我国电价分布“东高西低”有其合理性。但分类电价中商业电价定价最高,属于价格歧视。●评价我国电价水平高低,一定要看投资回报率,并重视成本监管与成本完善。●电价决策权的配置,横向过于分散,纵向过于集中。●参与电价决策的相关主体中,居民消费者力量太弱,但在电价上并不吃亏;而作为“非居民消费者”的发电公司力量也太弱。●即使不搞电力市场化,我国的电价体制和电力监管体制也需要改革。●新一轮电价改革的特点:理论创新、“上位”依托、整体设计、因地制宜。●电价改革方向———非自然垄断环节的市场化与自然垄断环节的监管现代化。●新一轮电价改革需研究解决七大问题。●当前急需研究解决的问题:一是电网公司投资回报过低如何解决?二是大用户“直购”后,搁浅成本及普遍服务责任如何负担?三是“公平负担系统成本”与“抑制高耗电产业迅猛发展”如何协调?     

Kenyan Competition Policy After Ten Years of the Competition Act: A Progress Report

Review of Industrial Organization - With the coming into force of the Competition Act (2010), Kenya entered the world of modern competition policy. The 10 years that has passed since has...     

国际政治经济新格局下的石油市场--来自2004年石油市场形势研讨会的报告

在复杂的国际政治、经济因素影响下,特别是在大国安全战略和能源战略的影响下,全球能源格局加速调整,竞争日趋白热化,国际石油市场出现了一些新特点.中国面临即将到来的2005年成品油零售市场的放开,以及未来20年GDP翻两番目标的实现,需要未雨绸缪.2003年11月27～28日,本刊编辑部召开了2004年石油市场形势研讨会,来自业内外的专家们对相关问题发表了精辟的见解.为飨读者,下面介绍经归纳整理后的专家们的一些主要观点.     

日本电力市场化改革最新进展及启示

日本在保持原九大电力公司垂直一体化模式的同时,通过采取引入特定规模电力企业(PPS)从事发电和售电业务,实行售电侧放开,成立监督机构,建立公平、公正、公开的市场机制,日本电力市场化改革取得了较满意的效果:电价平均降低30%左右、供电质量持续稳定、社会各界认可改革成果。认为日本结合国情稳步推进电力市场化改革、对输配分开的经济效益进行量化分析等经验对我国实施电力体制改革具有参考意义。     

Price Competition and Market Structure: The Impact of Cartel Policy on Concentration in the UK

This paper examines the impact of firms' conduct on market structure. It studies the evolution of concentration in UK manufacturing following the abolition of cartels using a theoretical framework based on Sutton's theory of market structure and a panel data set of four-digit industries over 1958–1977. The econometric results suggest that the intensity of price competition has a positive effect on concentration in exogenous sunk cost industries as well as in advertising-intensive and R&D-intensive industries. The concentration-market size relationship, while negative in exogenous sunk cost industries, breaks down in industries with high advertising or R&D intensity.     

用户异质、网络非中立与公共政策:基于双边市场视角的研究

本文通过构造比较静态与比较动态模型,对基于网络服务提供商平台两边用户异质情形下平台各层次配置相应内容流量的接入服务定价机制的网络投资激励与社会福利的效应进行了研究。发现,在数字化的网络提供商平台实行网络非中立的流量带宽配置,可以实现利益相关者均衡,满足在既定带宽下的不同服务需求,从而消除平台用户的交易外部性;不同接入速率敏感度的服务歧视,可以形成内容提供商一边的竞争,从而改善内容质量;网络服务提供商平台层次逻辑结构之间存在的相关性,使网络服务提供商可以利用杠杆效应,对平台的其他层次施加市场势力;在给定物理网络管制的情形下,强制性在网络其他层次推行网络中立管制会给平台的最优定价结构带来斯彭斯价格扭曲,而且加剧下游的竞争。     

Strategy and Circumstance: The Success of the NUJ's New Technology Policy

This article assesses the success of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in negotiating the introduction of computerised editorial systems (direct input) into provincial newspapers. It employs a quantitative and qualitative analysis to suggest that the NUJ has been exemplary in using the New Technology Agreement (NTA) as a bargaining tool in order to limit the negative effects of technological change and to secure notable benefits — particularly pay increases. This contrasts with other survey evidence which concludes that NTAs have fallen short of the TUC's original objectives in advocating their use. The success of the NUJ is attributed to an appropriate match between the union's new technology policy/strategy and the particular industrial circumstances. It may also explain the recent moves towards decollectivisation in the newspaper industry.     

面对新世纪变革背景的中国腈纶产业

对新世纪剧烈变化的中国腈纶市场作了研究，对国资、民资、外资三大资本力量进入腈纶产业竞争的新趋势、新动态进行解析，提出了中国民族腈纶企业提高竞争力的战略对策，应居安思危，进一步整合力量，构筑完整的产业链，发挥地理布局上的自身优势。     

Forecasting Sales of New Contingent Products: An Application to the Compact Disc Market

Estimating the sales potential of new products before an actual launch is a major problem confronting marketing and new products managers. Several modeling efforts for both new durable products and consumer package goods have been reported. An area which has received little explicit treatment, however, is that of new contingent product sales. A specific case of such products is the close relationship between software (consumables or accessory items subject to repeat purchase), and hardware (the original durable good required for use of the software). Examples of this relationship include video cassette recorders and VCR tapes; microcomputers and floppy diskettes; and cameras and photographic film. In this article Barry Bayus discusses a practical method for estimating hardware and software sales of such products. Effects due to different market segment behaviors, pricing, awareness levels, and purchase intentions are incorporated into the model. Results from a study of the compact disc prerecorded audio market by RCAlAriola are presented in order to illustrate how the model can be applied and how the results are useful in making managerial decisions.     

New Product Development Processes and New Product Profitability: Exploring the Mediating Role of Speed to Market and Product Quality

In new product development, faster is not always better. Conceptually, being faster to market should improve financial performance by improving product quality and reducing development expenses. Empirical support is mixed, however, demonstrating that higher speed to market exhibits an inverted U‐shaped relationship with product profitability. Conventional wisdom and empirical research suggest managers make speed to market–product quality–development expense trade‐offs. A particular concern regarding speed to market is that extreme speed may jeopardize product quality. Some researchers suggest that speed to market improves product quality while others suggest firms must balance both speed to market and product quality. Also, shorter lead times may be associated with reduced development expenses, but empirical evidence is conflicting. This research attempts to reconcile conflicting results regarding the speed to market–product quality relationship, their joint impact on product profitability, and their mediation role in the effects of development expenses and cross‐functional integration on product profitability. Partial least squares (PLS) is used to analyze multiplexed archival and survey data collected from NPD managers for 1115 different NPD projects in several firms. The results support the hypothesized equations, explaining 27% of speed to market variance, 35% of product quality variance, and 45% of product profitability variance. This study makes two contributions. First, because speed to market and product quality are related, simultaneous consideration of both factors enhances insight into their joint effect. Second, it provides evidence that speed to market and product quality jointly mediate development expense by NPD phase and cross‐functional integration effects on product profitability. Key results from the large sample data analysis include the following. Speed to market and product quality both enhance product profitability, but the impact of speed to market is larger than that of product quality. Speed to market and product quality partially mediate the impact of fuzzy front end phase expenses on product profitability, while expenses in the latter phases exhibit no impact on the mediators or profitability. Thus, the results suggest that trade‐offs are made not only between time, quality, and expense (i.e., if additional expenses are incurred at all), but also that trade‐offs relate to when (i.e., in which NPD phase) additional development expenses are incurred. Finally, cross‐functional integration (both internal and external) substantially impacts product profitability through a mix of direct and mediated effects.