IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v37y2000i3p451-470.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Spatial Competition and Location with Mergers and Product Licensing

Author

Listed:
  • George Norman

    (Department of Economics, Tufts University, MedFord, MA 02155, USA, gnorman@emerald.tufts.edu)

  • Lynne Pepall

    (Department of Economics, Tufts University, MedFord, MA 02155, USA, lpepal01@emerald.tufts.edu)

Abstract

This paper analyses mergers by Cournot firms producing differentiated products in a spatial market with product licensing by the merged firms. Product licensing allows the merged firms to co-ordinate their locations. If the degree of differentiation is not 'too low', a two-firm merger is more profitable for the merged firms than for the non-merged firms. The locational advantage created by the merger leads to the additional profit from the merger being an increasing function of the number of firms in the market. A two-firm merger generally increases total surplus and is therefore efficiency-enhancing. Moreover, there are circumstances in which every firm in the market wants to find a merger partner, consistent with the wave of mergers characteristic of many markets.

Suggested Citation

  • George Norman & Lynne Pepall, 2000. "Spatial Competition and Location with Mergers and Product Licensing," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 37(3), pages 451-470, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:37:y:2000:i:3:p:451-470
    DOI: 10.1080/0042098002050
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/0042098002050
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0042098002050?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. Farrell, Joseph & Shapiro, Carl, 1990. "Horizontal Mergers: An Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 107-126, March.
    2. McAfee, R Preston & Simons, Joseph J & Williams, Michael A, 1992. "Horizontal Mergers in Spatially Differentiated Noncooperative Markets," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 349-358, December.
    3. Davidson, Carl & Deneckere, Raymond, 1984. "Horizontal mergers and collusive behavior," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 117-132, June.
    4. Stephen W. Salant & Sheldon Switzer & Robert J. Reynolds, 1983. "Losses From Horizontal Merger: The Effects of an Exogenous Change in Industry Structure on Cournot-Nash Equilibrium," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(2), pages 185-199.
    5. James D. Reitzes & David T. Levy, 1995. "Price Discrimination and Mergers," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 28(2), pages 427-436, May.
    6. George Norman & Lynne Pepall, 1998. "Mergers in a Cournot Model of Spatial Competition: Urban Sprawl and Product Specialization," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 9813, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
    7. Szidarovszky, F. & Yakowitz, S., 1982. "Contributions to Cournot oligopoly theory," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 51-70, October.
    8. 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.
    9. David M. Kreps & Jose A. Scheinkman, 1983. "Quantity Precommitment and Bertrand Competition Yield Cournot Outcomes," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 326-337, Autumn.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. George Norman & Lynne Pepall, 2000. "Profitable Mergers in a Cournot Model of Spatial Competition," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 66(3), pages 667-681, January.
    2. Zhiqi Chen & Gang Li, 2018. "Horizontal Mergers In The Presence Of Capacity Constraints," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 1346-1356, April.
    3. Lommerud, Kjell Erik & Sorgard, Lars, 1997. "Merger and product range rivalry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 21-42, November.
    4. Cosnita-Langlais, Andreea, 2012. "Horizontal market concentration: Theoretical insights from spatial models," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 22-32.
    5. Sven-Olof Fridolfsson & Johan Stennek, 2005. "Why Mergers Reduce Profits And Raise Share Prices-A Theory Of Preemptive Mergers," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(5), pages 1083-1104, September.
    6. Fridolfsson, Sven-Olof & Stennek, Johan, 2005. "Hold-up of anti-competitive mergers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(9-10), pages 753-775, December.
    7. Baik, Kyung Hwan, 1995. "Horizontal mergers of price-setting firms with sunk capacity costs," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 245-256.
    8. Yuan, Zhennan & Chen, Frank Y. & Yan, Xiaoming & Yu, Yugang, 2020. "Operational implications of yield uncertainty in mergers and acquisitions," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 248-258.
    9. Chen, Jiawei, 2009. "The effects of mergers with dynamic capacity accumulation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 92-109, January.
    10. Inderst, Roman & Wey, Christian, 2004. "The incentives for takeover in oligopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(8-9), pages 1067-1089, November.
    11. 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.
    12. Lars-Hendrik Röller & Johan Stennek & Frank Verboven, 2006. "Efficiency Gains from Mergers," Chapters, in: Fabienne IIzkovitz & Roderick Meiklejohn (ed.), European Merger Control, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Anthony Creane & Carl Davidson, 2004. "Multidivisional firms, internal competition, and the merger paradox," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 37(4), pages 951-977, November.
    14. Verboven, Frank, 1995. "Corporate restructuring in a collusive oligopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 335-354, September.
    15. Rothschild, R. & Heywood, John S. & Monaco, Kristen, 2000. "Spatial price discrimination and the merger paradox," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 491-506, September.
    16. 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.
    17. John Heywood & Guangliang Ye, 2013. "Sequential entry and merger in spatial price discrimination," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 50(3), pages 841-859, June.
    18. David Soberman, 2022. "Business Expansion Through Acquisition," Customer Needs and Solutions, Springer;Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG), vol. 9(3), pages 74-94, December.
    19. George Norman & Lynne Pepall, 1998. "Mergers in a Cournot Model of Spatial Competition: Urban Sprawl and Product Specialization," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 9813, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
    20. Dirk Hackbarth & Bart Taub, 2022. "Does the Potential to Merge Reduce Competition?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 5364-5383, July.

    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:sae:urbstu:v:37:y:2000:i:3:p:451-470. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    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.