IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/qmktec/v18y2020i1d10.1007_s11129-019-09213-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evaluating horizontal mergers in the presence of price promotions

Author

Listed:
  • Maxim Sinitsyn

    (University of California, San Diego)

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate the impact of a horizontal merger between firms that use price promotions. I find that after the merger, the merged firms increase their prices, but coordinate the promotions by never discounting their products simultaneously. The non-merged firm responds with a more aggressive pricing strategy, offering deeper and more frequent discounts. The effects of a merger on the firms’ profits and the consumer surplus are very small relative to the case with no promotions. These conclusions are not affected by the size of the change in market concentration or by the degree of substitutability between the merging products. Thus, the use of price promotions by the merging firms can be viewed as a mitigating factor by the antitrust authorities.

Suggested Citation

  • Maxim Sinitsyn, 2020. "Evaluating horizontal mergers in the presence of price promotions," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 39-60, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:qmktec:v:18:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11129-019-09213-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s11129-019-09213-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11129-019-09213-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11129-019-09213-7?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. Varian, Hal R, 1980. "A Model of Sales," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(4), pages 651-659, September.
    2. Small, Kenneth A & Rosen, Harvey S, 1981. "Applied Welfare Economics with Discrete Choice Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(1), pages 105-130, January.
    3. Pedro Posada & Odd Rune Straume, 2004. "Merger, Partial Collusion and Relocation," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 83(3), pages 243-265, December.
    4. Brito, Duarte, 2003. "Preemptive mergers under spatial competition," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(10), pages 1601-1622, December.
    5. Narasimhan, Chakravarthi, 1988. "Competitive Promotional Strategies," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(4), pages 427-449, October.
    6. Sinitsyn, Maxim, 2009. "Price dispersion in duopolies with heterogeneous consumers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 197-205, March.
    7. Lommerud, Kjell Erik & Sorgard, Lars, 1997. "Merger and product range rivalry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 21-42, November.
    8. Maxim Sinitsyn, 2016. "Managing Price Promotions Within a Product Line," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(2), pages 304-318, March.
    9. Kurt R. Brekke & Luigi Siciliani & Odd Rune Straume, 2017. "Horizontal mergers and product quality," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(4), pages 1063-1103, November.
    10. Orley Ashenfelter & Daniel Hosken, 2010. "The Effect of Mergers on Consumer Prices: Evidence from Five Mergers on the Enforcement Margin," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(3), pages 417-466.
    11. Levy, David T & Reitzes, James D, 1992. "Anticompetitive Effects of Mergers in Markets with Localized Competition," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 8(2), pages 427-440, April.
    12. Sinitsyn, Maxim, 2008. "Characterization of the support of the mixed strategy price equilibria in oligopolies with heterogeneous consumers," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 242-245, May.
    13. Stahl, Dale O, II, 1989. "Oligopolistic Pricing with Sequential Consumer Search," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 700-712, September.
    14. Aviv Nevo, 2000. "Mergers with Differentiated Products: The Case of the Ready-to-Eat Cereal Industry," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(3), pages 395-421, Autumn.
    15. Tenn, Steven & Froeb, Luke & Tschantz, Steven, 2010. "Mergers when firms compete by choosing both price and promotion," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 695-707, November.
    16. Whinston, Michael D., 2007. "Antitrust Policy toward Horizontal Mergers," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 36, pages 2369-2440, Elsevier.
    17. Maxim Sinitsyn, 2012. "Coordination of Price Promotions in Complementary Categories," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(11), pages 2076-2094, November.
    18. Werden, Gregory J & Froeb, Luke M, 1994. "The Effects of Mergers in Differentiated Products Industries: Logit Demand and Merger Policy," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 407-426, October.
    19. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    20. Rosenthal, Robert W, 1980. "A Model in Which an Increase in the Number of Sellers Leads to a Higher Price," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(6), pages 1575-1579, September.
    21. Amit Gandhi & Luke Froeb & Steven Tschantz & Gregory J. Werden, 2008. "Post‐Merger Product Repositioning," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(1), pages 49-67, March.
    22. Maxim Sinitsyn, 2008. "Technical Note--Price Promotions in Asymmetric Duopolies with Heterogeneous Consumers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(12), pages 2081-2087, December.
    23. Raymond Deneckere & Carl Davidson, 1985. "Incentives to Form Coalitions with Bertrand Competition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(4), pages 473-486, Winter.
    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. Mark Armstrong & John Vickers, 2023. "Multibrand Price Dispersion," Economics Series Working Papers 1029, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Nie, Pu-yan & Wang, Chan & Wen, Hong-xing, 2021. "Horizontal mergers under uniform resource constraints," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).

    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. Cosnita-Langlais, Andreea, 2012. "Horizontal market concentration: Theoretical insights from spatial models," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 22-32.
    2. Maxim Sinitsyn, 2016. "Managing Price Promotions Within a Product Line," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(2), pages 304-318, March.
    3. Mathur, Sameer & Sinitsyn, Maxim, 2013. "Price promotions in emerging markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 404-416.
    4. Kurt R. Brekke & Luigi Siciliani & Odd Rune Straume, 2017. "Horizontal mergers and product quality," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(4), pages 1063-1103, November.
    5. Sinitsyn, Maxim, 2022. "Price leadership with promotions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    6. Andreea Cosnita‐Langlais & Alexander Rasch, 2023. "Horizontal mergers, cost savings, and network effects," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(1), pages 65-82, January.
    7. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    8. Patrick Sun, 2014. "Quality Competition in Mobile Telecommunications: Evidence from Connecticut," Working Papers 14-05, NET Institute.
    9. Kai A.Konrad, 2010. "Merger Profitability in Industries with Brand Portfolios and Loyal Customers," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 26, pages 5-26.
    10. Maxim Sinitsyn, 2012. "Coordination of Price Promotions in Complementary Categories," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(11), pages 2076-2094, November.
    11. Martin, Simon, 2020. "Market transparency and consumer search - Evidence from the German retail gasoline market," DICE Discussion Papers 350, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    12. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan & Patrick Scholten, 2004. "Price Dispersion In The Small And In The Large: Evidence From An Internet Price Comparison Site," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(4), pages 463-496, December.
    13. Friberg, Richard & Romahn, André, 2015. "Divestiture requirements as a tool for competition policy: A case from the Swedish beer market," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 1-18.
    14. Takeshi Ebina & Daisuke Shimizu, 2009. "Sequential Mergers With Differing Differentiation Levels," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 237-251, September.
    15. Michael R. Baye & J. Rupert J. Gatti & Paul Kattuman & John Morgan, 2009. "Clicks, Discontinuities, and Firm Demand Online," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 935-975, December.
    16. Volker Nocke & Nicolas Schutz, 2018. "An Aggregative Games Approach to Merger Analysis in Multiproduct-Firm Oligopoly," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2018_024, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    17. Jerome Foncel & Marc Ivaldi & Jrisy Motis, 2008. "An Econometric Workbench for Comparing the Substantive and Dominance Tests in Horizontal Merger Analysis," Working Papers 0833, University of Crete, Department of Economics.
    18. Emilie Dargaud & Carlo Reggiani, 2015. "On The Price Effects Of Horizontal Mergers: A Theoretical Interpretation," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(3), pages 236-255, July.
    19. Gabszewicz Jean J. & Marini Marco A. & Tarola Ornella, 2019. "Endogenous Mergers in Markets with Vertically Differentiated Products," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 19(1), pages 1-22, January.
    20. Evangelos Rouskas, 2022. "The effects of entry in a model of sales," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(6), pages 2529-2544, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Horizontal mergers; Price promotions; Consumer welfare; Product line pricing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
    • M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing

    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:kap:qmktec:v:18:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11129-019-09213-7. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.