IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jaitra/v91y2021ics096969972030572x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Competition and countervailing power: Evidence from the China Eastern and Shanghai Airlines merger

Author

Listed:
  • Ho, Chun-Yu
  • McCarthy, Patrick
  • Wang, Yanhao

Abstract

This paper examines the motives and effects behind the horizontal merger between China Eastern and Shanghai Airlines in 2009. We develop testable hypotheses, incorporating into a unified framework the two merging airlines, their domestic and international competitors, and relevant airports along the supply chain. We employ an event study methodology and show that domestic competitors gain whereas international competitors lose. Our results suggest that the sources of gain for the merging firms are market power in domestic markets and efficiency improvement in international markets. Further, as a hub for the merged airline, Shanghai Airport experienced positive abnormal returns. Our results do not support the hypothesis that the merged airline gains countervailing power towards airports. Our event study findings are robust to alternative estimation periods and samples, and are consistent with analyst forecasts and long-run operating performances.

Suggested Citation

  • Ho, Chun-Yu & McCarthy, Patrick & Wang, Yanhao, 2021. "Competition and countervailing power: Evidence from the China Eastern and Shanghai Airlines merger," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaitra:v:91:y:2021:i:c:s096969972030572x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jairtraman.2020.101990
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096969972030572X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jairtraman.2020.101990?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brown, Stephen J. & Warner, Jerold B., 1985. "Using daily stock returns : The case of event studies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 3-31, March.
    2. Yan, Jia & Fu, Xiaowen & Oum, Tae Hoon & Wang, Kun, 2019. "Airline horizontal mergers and productivity: Empirical evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 358-376.
    3. Scholes, Myron & Williams, Joseph, 1977. "Estimating betas from nonsynchronous data," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 309-327, December.
    4. Joseph A. Clougherty & Anming Zhang, 2009. "Domestic rivalry and export performance: theory and evidence from international airline markets," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(2), pages 440-468, May.
    5. Zhang, Anming & Czerny, Achim I., 2012. "Airports and airlines economics and policy: An interpretive review of recent research," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 15-34.
    6. Qiong Zhang & Hangjun Yang & Qiang Wang, 2013. "Market Conduct of the Three Busiest Airline Routes in China," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 47(3), pages 335-347, September.
    7. Zhang, Yahua & Round, David K., 2011. "Price wars and price collusion in China's airline markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 361-372, July.
    8. Kim, E Han & Singal, Vijay, 1993. "Mergers and Market Power: Evidence from the Airline Industry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 549-569, June.
    9. Haskel, Jonathan & Iozzi, Alberto & Valletti, Tommaso, 2013. "Market structure, countervailing power and price discrimination: The case of airports," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 12-26.
    10. Flouris, Triant & Swidler, Steve, 2004. "American airlines’ takeover of TWA: an ex-post analysis of financial market information," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 173-180.
    11. Van Dender, Kurt, 2007. "Determinants of fares and operating revenues at US airports," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 317-336, September.
    12. John J. Binder, 1985. "Measuring the Effects of Regulation with Stock Price Data," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(2), pages 167-183, Summer.
    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. Eckbo, B. Espen, 1983. "Horizontal mergers, collusion, and stockholder wealth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1-4), pages 241-273, April.
    15. Fu, Xiaowen & Zhang, Anming & Lei, Zheng, 2012. "Will China’s airline industry survive the entry of high-speed rail?," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 13-25.
    16. JA. Clougherty, 2000. "US domestic airline alliances: does the national welfare impact turn on strategic international gains?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 18(3), pages 304-314, July.
    17. Ma, Wenliang & Wang, Qiang & Yang, Hangjun & Zhang, Yahua, 2020. "Evaluating the price effects of two airline mergers in China," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    18. Harford, Jarrad, 2005. "What drives merger waves?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(3), pages 529-560, September.
    19. Dimson, Elroy, 1979. "Risk measurement when shares are subject to infrequent trading," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 197-226, June.
    20. Clougherty, Joseph A., 2002. "US domestic airline mergers: the neglected international determinants," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 557-576, April.
    21. Brueckner, Jan K & Whalen, W Tom, 2000. "The Price Effects of International Airline Alliances," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(2), pages 503-545, October.
    22. Zhang, Yahua & Round, David K., 2009. "The effects of China's airline mergers on prices," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 315-323.
    23. Y. Zhang, 2015. "Merger Between Airlines in Financial Distress: Does the Merger Save Them?," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, Intersentia, vol. 16(1), pages 66-82, March.
    24. Zhang, Anming & Aldridge, Derek, 1997. "Effects of merger and foreign alliance: An event study of the Canadian airline industry," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 29-42, March.
    25. Tomaso Duso & Damien J. Neven & Lars-Hendrik Röller, 2007. "The Political Economy of European Merger Control: Evidence using Stock Market Data," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(3), pages 455-489.
    26. Starkie, David, 2002. "Airport regulation and competition," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 63-72.
    27. Lei, Zheng & Yu, Man & Chen, Ruowei & O'Connell, John F., 2016. "Liberalization of China–US air transport market: Assessing the impacts of the 2004 and 2007 protocols," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 24-32.
    28. Wang, Jiaoe & Bonilla, David & Banister, David, 2016. "Air deregulation in China and its impact on airline competition 1994–2012," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 12-23.
    29. Borenstein, Severin, 1990. "Airline Mergers, Airport Dominance, and Market Power," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 400-404, May.
    30. Singal, Vijay, 1996. "Airline Mergers and Competition: An Integration of Stock and Product Price Effects," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 69(2), pages 233-268, April.
    31. Anna Bottasso & Martina Bruno & Maurizio Conti & Claudio Piga, 2017. "Competition, vertical relationship and countervailing power in the UK airport industry," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 37-62, August.
    32. Yahua Zhang, 2012. "A retrospective analysis of the effects of airline mergers on China Eastern's ‘lifeline’ routes: a difference-in-differences approach," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 464-475.
    33. Zhang, Qiong & Yang, Hangjun & Wang, Qiang, 2017. "Impact of high-speed rail on China’s Big Three airlines," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 77-85.
    34. Fee, C. Edward & Thomas, Shawn, 2004. "Sources of gains in horizontal mergers: evidence from customer, supplier, and rival firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 423-460, December.
    35. Knapp, William, 1990. "Event Analysis of Air Carrier Mergers and Acquisitions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(4), pages 703-707, November.
    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. Yaghoub Abdi & Xiaoni Li & Xavier Càmara-Turull, 2023. "Firm value in the airline industry: perspectives on the impact of sustainability and Covid-19," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-24, December.

    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. Ho, Chun-Yu & McCarthy, Patrick & Wang, Yanhao, 2020. "Decomposing sources of gain from airline mergers: A model and case study from China," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    2. Joseph A. Clougherty & Tomaso Duso, 2009. "The Impact of Horizontal Mergers on Rivals: Gains to Being Left Outside a Merger," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(8), pages 1365-1395, December.
    3. Amrita Nain & Yan Wang, 2018. "The Product Market Impact of Minority Stake Acquisitions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(2), pages 825-844, February.
    4. Duso, Tomaso & Gugler, Klaus & Yurtoglu, Burcin B., 2011. "How effective is European merger control?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 980-1006.
    5. Tomaso Duso & Klaus Gugler & Burcin Yurtoglu, 2005. "EU Merger Remedies: A Preliminary Empirical Assessment," CIG Working Papers SP II 2005-16, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
    6. Gao, Ning & Peng, Ni & Zhang, Yi, 2021. "Distributive inefficiency in horizontal mergers: Evidence from wealth transfers between merging firms and their customers," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    7. Ma, Wenliang & Wang, Qiang & Yang, Hangjun & Zhang, Yahua, 2020. "Evaluating the price effects of two airline mergers in China," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    8. Hammoudeh, Mosab & Nain, Amrita & Qian, Yiming, 2022. "The role of divestitures in horizontal mergers11We thank Jon Garfinkel, Jayant Kale, Kai Li, Gordon Philips, Anand Vijh, Thomas Wollmann, David Ravenscraft and participants at the 2016 American Financ," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    9. John Kwoka & Chengyan Gu, 2015. "Predicting Merger Outcomes: The Accuracy of Stock Market Event Studies, Market Structure Characteristics, and Agency Decisions," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(3).
    10. Su, Min & Luan, Weixin & Fu, Xiaowen & Yang, Zaili & Zhang, Rui, 2020. "The competition effects of low-cost carriers and high-speed rail on the Chinese aviation market," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 37-46.
    11. Sven‐Olof Fridolfsson & Johan Stennek, 2010. "Industry Concentration and Welfare: On the Use of Stock Market Evidence from Horizontal Mergers," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(308), pages 734-750, October.
    12. Ma, Wenliang & Wang, Qiang & Yang, Hangjun & Zhang, Yahua, 2020. "Is multimarket contact an antitrust concern? A case of China’s airline market," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 515-526.
    13. Dirk Hackbarth & Jianjun Miao, "undated". "The Timing and Returns of Mergers and Acquisitions in Oligopolistic Industries," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series wp2008-022, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    14. Bhattacharyya, Sugato & Nain, Amrita, 2011. "Horizontal acquisitions and buying power: A product market analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 97-115, January.
    15. Alcalde, Nuria & Powell, Ronan, 2022. "Government intervention in European mergers and acquisitions," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    16. Kejriwal, Mohitosh & Perron, Pierre, 2008. "Data Dependent Rules For Selection Of The Number Of Leads And Lags In The Dynamic Ols Cointegrating Regression," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(5), pages 1425-1441, October.
    17. Hackbarth, Dirk & Miao, Jianjun, 2012. "The dynamics of mergers and acquisitions in oligopolistic industries," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 585-609.
    18. Choo, Yap Yin & Corbo, Leonardo & Wang, Kun, 2018. "Joint impact of airline market structure and airport ownership on airport market power and profit margin," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 67-78.
    19. Tan, Xinlong & Jia, Rongwen & Yan, Jia & Wang, Kun & Bian, Lei, 2021. "An Exploratory analysis of flight delay propagation in China," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    20. Zhang, Anming & Czerny, Achim I., 2012. "Airports and airlines economics and policy: An interpretive review of recent research," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 15-34.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Merger; Shareholder wealth; Countervailing power; Event study; Internationalization; Vertical supply chain;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
    • L43 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Legal Monopolies and Regulation or Deregulation
    • L93 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Air Transportation
    • L98 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Government Policy

    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:eee:jaitra:v:91:y:2021:i:c:s096969972030572x. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-air-transport-management/ .

    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.