IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/revind/v51y2017i2d10.1007_s11151-017-9587-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Vertical Restraints, the Sylvania Case, and China’s Antitrust Enforcement

Author

Listed:
  • Zhiyong Liu

    (Indiana State University)

  • Yue Qiao

    (Shandong University)

Abstract

We briefly review the relevant economic theories and legal treatment of vertical restraints, and especially focus on the 1977 landmark case of Sylvania and its possible influence on China’s antitrust enforcement on vertical restraints. China’s competition policy, and particularly its antimonopoly law, does not explicitly instruct with respect to the enforcement approach (per se versus rule of reason) toward vertical restraints. But from an overview of China’s recent antitrust cases, we find that there is a division in the approaches taken by public versus private enforcement: Even though the administrative enforcement is more inclined to the application of per se prohibitions (or the application of the EU-style prohibition-plus-exemption approach), it seems that a rule of reason is the (increasingly) prevailing approach that is taken by the courts.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhiyong Liu & Yue Qiao, 2017. "Vertical Restraints, the Sylvania Case, and China’s Antitrust Enforcement," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 51(2), pages 193-215, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:revind:v:51:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s11151-017-9587-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s11151-017-9587-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11151-017-9587-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11151-017-9587-7?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. Baumol, William J, 1982. "Contestable Markets: An Uprising in the Theory of Industry Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(1), pages 1-15, March.
    2. Williamson, Oliver E, 1973. "Markets and Hierarchies: Some Elementary Considerations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(2), pages 316-325, May.
    3. Louis Kaplow, 2014. "Likelihood Ratio Tests and Legal Decision Rules," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 16(1), pages 1-39.
    4. Joseph Farrell & Michael Katz, 2006. "The Economics of Welfare Standards in Antitrust," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 2.
    5. Michael D. Whinston, 2003. "On the Transaction Cost Determinants of Vertical Integration," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 1-23, April.
    6. Barak Y. Orbach, 2011. "The Antitrust Consumer Welfare Paradox," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(1), pages 133-164.
    7. Joseph J. Spengler, 1950. "Vertical Integration and Antitrust Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(4), pages 347-347.
    8. Mueller, Willard F & Geithman, Frederick E, 1991. "An Empirical Test of the Free Rider and Market Power Hypotheses," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 73(2), pages 301-308, May.
    9. Stephen Martin & John T. Scott, 2017. "GTE Sylvania and Interbrand Competition as the Primary Concern of Antitrust Law," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 51(2), pages 217-233, September.
    10. Michael D. Whinston & Ilya R. Segal, 2000. "Naked Exclusion: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 296-309, March.
    11. R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), 1989. "Handbook of Industrial Organization," Handbook of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    12. Zhiyong Liu & Yue Qiao, 2012. "Abuse of Market Dominance Under China’s 2007 Anti-monopoly Law: A Preliminary Assessment," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 41(1), pages 77-107, August.
    13. Rasmusen, Eric B & Ramseyer, J Mark & Wiley, John S, Jr, 1991. "Naked Exclusion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1137-1145, December.
    14. G.F. Mathewson & R.A. Winter, 1984. "An Economic Theory of Vertical Restraints," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(1), pages 27-38, Spring.
    15. Katz, Michael L., 1989. "Vertical contractual relations," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 655-721, Elsevier.
    16. Klein, Benjamin & Murphy, Kevin M, 1988. "Vertical Restraints as Contract Enforcement Mechanisms," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(2), pages 265-297, October.
    17. John Simpson & Abraham L. Wickelgren, 2007. "Naked Exclusion, Efficient Breach, and Downstream Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1305-1320, September.
    18. Elif Cemre Hazıroğlu & Semih Gökatalay, 2016. "Minimum resale price maintenance in EU in the aftermath of the US Leegin decision," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 45-71, August.
    19. Aghion, Philippe & Bolton, Patrick, 1987. "Contracts as a Barrier to Entry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 388-401, June.
    20. Mueller, Willard F. & Geithman, Frederick E., 1991. "An Empirical Test of the Free Rider and Market Power Hypothesis," Working Papers 204112, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Food System Research Group.
    21. Xinzhu Zhang & Vanessa Zhang, 2012. "New Wine into Old Wineskins: Recent Developments in China’s Competition Policy Against Monopolistic/Collusive Agreements," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 41(1), pages 53-75, August.
    22. R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), 1989. "Handbook of Industrial Organization," Handbook of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    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. Jeroen Hinloopen & Stephen Martin, 2017. "Introduction to the Special Issue," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 51(2), pages 147-149, September.

    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. Bakó, Barna & Kálecz-Simon, András, 2012. "Vertikális korlátozások - növelik vagy csökkentik a jólétet?. Érvek az irodalomból [Vertical constraints - do they increase or reduce welfare?. Arguments in the literature]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(10), pages 1138-1159.
    2. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    3. Shi, Guanming & Stiegert, Kyle & Chavas, Jean Paul, 2010. "An Analysis of Pricing in Horizontal and Vertical Markets: The Case of the Cottonseed Market," Working Papers 201439, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Food System Research Group.
    4. Guanming Shi & Kyle W. Stiegert & Jean P. Chavas, 2011. "An analysis of bundle pricing in horizontal and vertical markets: The case of the U.S. cottonseed market," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 42, pages 77-88, November.
    5. Chen, Chia-Wen, 2014. "Estimating the foreclosure effect of exclusive dealing: Evidence from the entry of specialty beer producers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 47-64.
    6. Sexton, Richard J., 1991. "Game Theory: A Review With Applications To Vertical Control In Agricultural Markets," Working Papers 225865, University of California, Davis, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    7. Irmen, Andreas, 1998. "Precommitment in Competing Vertical Chains," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(4), pages 333-359, September.
    8. Helfrich, Magdalena & Herweg, Fabian, 2020. "Context-dependent preferences and retailing: Vertical restraints on internet sales," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    9. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    10. Gibbons, Robert, 2005. "Four forma(lizable) theories of the firm?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 200-245, October.
    11. Staahl Gabrielsen, Tommy & Johansen, Bjørn Olav & Shaffer, Greg, 2018. "When is Double Marginalization a Problem?," Working Papers in Economics 7/18, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    12. Gratz, Linda & Reisinger, Markus, 2013. "On the competition enhancing effects of exclusive dealing contracts," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 429-437.
    13. Ellingsen, Tore, 1995. "Long Term Contracts, Arbitrage, and Vertical Restraints," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 58, Stockholm School of Economics.
    14. William Comanor & Patrick Rey, 2000. "Vertical Restraints and the Market Power of Large Distributors," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 17(2), pages 135-153, September.
    15. Desmond (Ho-Fu) Lo & Stephen W. Salant, 2016. "The strategic use of early bird discounts for dealers," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 97-127, June.
    16. Cooper, James C. & Froeb, Luke M. & O'Brien, Dan & Vita, Michael G., 2005. "Vertical antitrust policy as a problem of inference," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(7-8), pages 639-664, September.
    17. John Asker & Heski Bar-Isaac, 2010. "Exclusionary Minimum Resale Price Maintenance," NBER Working Papers 16564, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Cédric Argenton, 2010. "Exclusive Quality," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(3), pages 690-716, September.
    19. Fadairo, Muriel & Yu, Jianyu & Lanchimba, Cintya, 2017. "The Choice of Exclusive Dealing: Economic Rationales and Evidence from French Retail Chains," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 93(3), pages 317-335.
    20. Brennan, Timothy J., 2000. "The Economics of Competition Policy: Recent Developments and Cautionary Notes in Antitrust and Regulation," Discussion Papers 10716, Resources for the Future.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Vertical restraints; Sylvania; Antitrust; Antitrust enforcement; Competition policy; Per se rule; Rule of reason;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L43 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Legal Monopolies and Regulation or Deregulation
    • L40 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - General
    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • K23 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Regulated Industries and Administrative Law

    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:revind:v:51:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s11151-017-9587-7. 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.