IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/coecpo/v23y2005i3p404-415.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Industry Trade Balance And Domestic Merger Policy: Empirical Evidence From U.S. Merger Policy For Manufacturing Sectors

Author

Listed:
  • JOSEPH A. CLOUGHERTY

Abstract

The literature on antitrust in an open‐economy setting is inconclusive with respect to the role played by trade balance on the tenor of domestic merger policy. Using a panel dataset composed of U.S. merger reviews by industrial sector over the 1982–2001 period, I empirically test the impact of sectoral trade balance on the level of antitrust scrutiny. The results suggest that larger trade balances lead to more vigorous antitrust scrutiny; thus “strategic” merger policy does not appear evident, and consumer surplus appears to guide U.S. merger policy even under the lure of international competitive gains.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph A. Clougherty, 2005. "Industry Trade Balance And Domestic Merger Policy: Empirical Evidence From U.S. Merger Policy For Manufacturing Sectors," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 23(3), pages 404-415, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:23:y:2005:i:3:p:404-415
    DOI: 10.1093/cep/byi030
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/cep/byi030
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1093/cep/byi030?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dixit, Avinash K. & Grossman, Gene M., 1986. "Targeted export promotion with several oligopolistic industries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3-4), pages 233-249, November.
    2. Joseph A. Clougherty, 2002. "A Political Economic Approach to the Domestic Airline Merger Phenomenon," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 36(1), pages 27-48, January.
    3. Warzynski, Frederic, 2001. "Did tough antitrust policy lead to lower mark-ups in the US manufacturing industry?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 139-144, January.
    4. Joseph A. Clougherty, 2005. "Antitrust holdup source, cross‐national institutional variation, and corporate political strategy implications for domestic mergers in a global context," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 769-790, August.
    5. Horn, Henrik & Levinsohn, James, 2001. "Merger Policies and Trade Liberalisation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(470), pages 244-276, April.
    6. Martin Richardson, 2017. "Trade and Competition Policies: Concordia Discors?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Dimensions of Trade Policy, chapter 11, pages 221-242, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Farrell, Joseph & Shapiro, Carl, 1990. "Horizontal Mergers: An Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 107-126, March.
    8. Kee, Hiau Looi & Hoekman, Bernard, 2007. "Imports, entry and competition law as market disciplines," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 831-858, May.
    9. Joseph A Clougherty, 2001. "Globalization and the Autonomy of Domestic Competition Policy: An Empirical Test on the World Airline Industry," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 32(3), pages 459-478, September.
    10. Ghosal, Vivek, 2002. "Potential foreign competition in US manufacturing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(10), pages 1461-1489, December.
    11. Damien J. Neven & Lars-Hendrik R–ller, 2003. "On the Scope of Conflict in International Merger Control," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 235-249, December.
    12. Russell Pittman, 1977. "Market structure and campaign contributions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 37-52, September.
    13. Joseph Clougherty & Anming Zhang, 2005. "Export orientation and domestic merger policy: theory and some empirical evidence," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 38(3), pages 778-806, August.
    14. Siegfried, John J, 1975. "The Determinants of Antitrust Activity," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(2), pages 559-574, October.
    15. Paul R. Krugman, 1994. "Introduction to "Empirical Studies of Strategic Trade Policy"," NBER Chapters, in: Empirical Studies of Strategic Trade Policy, pages 1-10, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Weingast, Barry R & Moran, Mark J, 1983. "Bureaucratic Discretion or Congressional Control? Regulatory Policymaking by the Federal Trade Commission," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(5), pages 765-800, October.
    17. Jonathan Eaton & Gene M. Grossman, 1986. "Optimal Trade and Industrial Policy Under Oligopoly," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(2), pages 383-406.
    18. White, Lawrence J, 1987. "Antitrust and Merger Policy: A Review and Critique," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 13-22, Fall.
    19. William E. Kovacic & Carl Shapiro, 2000. "Antitrust Policy: A Century of Economic and Legal Thinking," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 43-60, Winter.
    20. Barros, Pedro P. & Cabral, Luis, 1994. "Merger policy in open economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 1041-1055, May.
    21. Posner, Richard A, 1970. "A Statistical Study of Antitrust Enforcement," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(2), pages 365-419, October.
    22. Granger, C W J, 1969. "Investigating Causal Relations by Econometric Models and Cross-Spectral Methods," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 37(3), pages 424-438, July.
    23. Fisher, Franklin M, 1987. "Horizontal Mergers: Triage and Treatment," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 23-40, Fall.
    24. Long, William F & Schramm, Richard & Tollison, Robert D, 1973. "The Economic Determinants of Antitrust Activity," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(2), pages 351-364, October.
    25. Coate, Malcolm B & Higgins, Richard S & McChesney, Fred S, 1990. "Bureaucracy and Politics in FTC Merger Challenges," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(2), pages 463-482, October.
    26. Yano, Makoto, 2001. "Trade Imbalance and Domestic Market Competition Policy," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 42(3), pages 729-750, August.
    27. Faith, Roger L & Leavens, Donald R & Tollison, Robert D, 1982. "Antitrust Pork Barrel," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(2), pages 329-342, October.
    28. Ghosal, Vivek & Gallo, Joseph, 2001. "The cyclical behavior of the Department of Justice's antitrust enforcement activity," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 27-54, January.
    29. Keith Head & John Ries, 1997. "International Mergers and Welfare under Decentralized Competition Policy," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 30(4), pages 1104-1123, November.
    30. Paul Krugman & Alasdair Smith, 1994. "Empirical Studies of Strategic Trade Policy," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number krug94-1, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joseph Clougherty, 2010. "Competition Policy Trends and Economic Growth: Cross-National Empirical Evidence," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 111-127.
    2. Andreas Haufler & Søren Bo Nielsen, 2008. "Merger policy to promote 'global players'? A simple model," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 60(3), pages 517-545, July.
    3. Robert M. Feinberg & Kara M. Reynolds, 2009. "The Determinants of State-Level Antitrust Enforcement," Working Papers 2009-17, American University, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joseph A. Clougherty, 2003. "Industry Trade-Balance and Domestic Merger Policy: Some Empirical Evidence from the U.S," CIG Working Papers SP II 2003-19, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
    2. Joseph A. Clougherty, 2005. "Antitrust holdup source, cross‐national institutional variation, and corporate political strategy implications for domestic mergers in a global context," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 769-790, August.
    3. Joseph Clougherty & Anming Zhang, 2005. "Export orientation and domestic merger policy: theory and some empirical evidence," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 38(3), pages 778-806, August.
    4. Rikard Forslid & Jonas Häckner & Astri Muren, 2011. "Trade costs and the timing of competition policy adoption," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(1), pages 171-200, February.
    5. Ghosal, Vivek, 2007. "Regime Shift in Antitrust," MPRA Paper 5460, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Breinlich, Holger & Nocke, Volker & Schutz, Nicolas, 2017. "International aspects of merger policy: A survey," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 415-429.
    7. Vivek Ghosal & D. Daniel Sokol, 2016. "Policy Innovations, Political Preferences, and Cartel Prosecutions," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 48(4), pages 405-432, June.
    8. William F. Shughart, 2022. "On the Virginia school of antitrust: Competition policy, law & economics and public choice," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(1), pages 1-19, April.
    9. Gaubert, Cecile & Itskhoki, Oleg & Vogler, Maximilian, 2021. "Government policies in a granular global economy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 95-112.
    10. B. Zorina Khan, 1999. "Legal Monopoly: Patents and Antitrust Litigation in U.S. Manufacturing, 1970-1998," NBER Working Papers 7068, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Neven, Damien J. & Roller, Lars-Hendrik, 2000. "The allocation of jurisdiction in international antitrust," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(4-6), pages 845-855, May.
    12. Andreas Haufler & Søren Bo Nielsen, 2008. "Merger policy to promote 'global players'? A simple model," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 60(3), pages 517-545, July.
    13. Arijit Mukherjee & Umut Erksan Senalp, 2021. "Firm‐productivity and cross border merger," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 838-859, September.
    14. Ulus Aysegul & Yildiz Halis M., 2012. "On the Relationship between Tariff Levels and the Nature of Mergers," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-40, December.
    15. Cabral, Luis M.B., 2005. "An equilibrium approach to international merger policy," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(9-10), pages 739-751, December.
    16. Kjell Erik Lommerud & Odd Rune Straume & Lars Sørgard, 2006. "National versus international mergers in unionized oligopoly," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(1), pages 212-233, March.
    17. Timo Goeschl & Johannes Jarke, 2013. "The warnings puzzle: an upstream explanation," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 339-360, December.
    18. Frank Stähler & Thorsten Upmann, 2008. "Market Entry Regulation and International Competition," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(4), pages 611-626, September.
    19. Dong‐Hun Kim, 2010. "Making or Breaking a Deal: the Impact of Electoral Systems on Mergers & Acquisitions," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(3), pages 432-449, August.
    20. repec:kap:iaecre:v:13:y:2007:i:1:p:81-96 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Beladi, Hamid & Mukherjee, Arijit, 2012. "Footloose foreign firm and profitable domestic merger," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 186-194.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:23:y:2005:i:3:p:404-415. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.