IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/cesptp/halshs-00113503.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the Effective Design of the Efficiency Defence

Author

Listed:
  • Andreea Cosnita

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Jean-Philippe Tropeano

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

The efficiency defence was long delayed in the European merger control due to costly implementation issues. In this paper we argue that the upstream consequences of the efficiency defence should equally be considered, namely the improvement of the distribution of notified mergers through the incentives it provides towards more efficient mergers. First of all, we show that even if the Competition Authority may not tell apart the mergers that rightfully invoke the efficiency defence from those that do not, allowing such a procedure can lead to a lower post-merger price. Secondly, we study the impact of merger remedies on the incentives conveyed by the efficiency defence, and conclude on the optimal design of the efficiency defence procedure.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreea Cosnita & Jean-Philippe Tropeano, 2006. "On the Effective Design of the Efficiency Defence," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00113503, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00113503
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00113503
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00113503/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. repec:hhs:iuiwop:543 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Lagerlof, Johan N.M. & Heidhues, Paul, 2005. "On the desirability of an efficiency defense in merger control," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(9-10), pages 803-827, December.
    4. Jo Seldeslachts & Joseph A. Clougherty & Pedro Pita Barros, 2009. "Settle for Now but Block for Tomorrow: The Deterrence Effects of Merger Policy Tools," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(3), pages 607-634, August.
    5. Motta,Massimo, 2004. "Competition Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521016919, September.
    6. Farrell, Joseph & Shapiro, Carl, 1990. "Horizontal Mergers: An Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 107-126, March.
    7. Seldeslachts, Jo & Clougherty, Joseph A. & Barros, Pedro Pita, 2007. "Remedy for Now but Prohibit for Tomorrow: The Deterrence Effects of Merger Policy Tools," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 218, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    8. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Barros, Pedro Pita, 2003. "Looking behind the curtain--effects from modernization of European Union competition policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 613-624, August.
    10. Helder Vasconcelos, 2010. "Efficiency Gains And Structural Remedies In Merger Control," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 742-766, December.
    11. Caillaud, Bernard & Duchêne, Anne, 2011. "Patent office in innovation policy: Nobody's perfect," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 242-252, March.
    12. Besanko, David & Spulber, Daniel F, 1993. "Contested Mergers and Equilibrium Antitrust Policy," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(1), pages 1-29, April.
    13. Fabienne Ilzkovitz & Roderick Meiklejohn, 2006. "European Merger Control: Do We Need an Efficiency Defence?," Chapters, in: Fabienne IIzkovitz & Roderick Meiklejohn (ed.), European Merger Control, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Albert Banal‐Estañol & Jo Seldeslachts, 2011. "Merger Failures," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 589-624, June.
    15. Thibaud Vergé, 2010. "Horizontal Mergers, Structural Remedies, And Consumer Welfare In A Cournot Oligopoly With Assets," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 723-741, December.
    16. Mark Armstrong & John Vickers, 2010. "A Model of Delegated Project Choice," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(1), pages 213-244, January.
    17. Loss, Frederic & Malavolti-Grimal, Estelle & Verge, Thibaud & Berges-Sennou, Fabian, 2008. "European competition policy modernization: From notifications to legal exception," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 77-98, January.
    18. Jorde, Thomas M & Teece, David J, 1990. "Innovation and Cooperation: Implications for Competition and Antitrust," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 75-96, Summer.
    19. Joseph Farrell & Carl Shapiro, 1990. "Asset Ownership and Market Structure in Oligopoly," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(2), pages 275-292, Summer.
    20. Ecer, Sencer, 2005. "A rational expectations critique of merger policy analysis," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 73-77, January.
    21. Banal-Estanol, Albert & Macho-Stadler, Ines & Seldeslachts, Jo, 2008. "Endogenous mergers and endogenous efficiency gains: The efficiency defence revisited," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 69-91, January.
    22. Shapiro, Carl & Willig, Robert D, 1990. "On the Antitrust Treatment of Production Joint Ventures," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 113-130, Summer.
    23. Yosha Oved, 1995. "Information Disclosure Costs and the Choice of Financing Source," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 3-20, January.
    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. Lars Sorgard & Andreea Cosnita-Langlais, 2013. "Enforcement vs Deterrence in Merger Control: Can Remedies Lead to Lower Welfare?," Post-Print hal-01668416, HAL.
    2. Andreea Cosnita-Langlais, 2016. "Enforcement of Merger Control. Theoretical Insights for Its Procedural Design," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 67(HS1), pages 39-51.
    3. Boris Begović & Dušan Popović, 2019. "Merger Control and Economic Growth of LDCs: Some Observations and Recommendations," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 54(2), pages 381-408, March.
    4. Shekhar, Shiva & Wey, Christian, 2017. "Uncertain merger synergies, passive partial ownership, and merger control," DICE Discussion Papers 260, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    5. Dertwinkel-Kalt, Markus & Wey, Christian, 2014. "Remedies vs. Extreme Options in Merger Control," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100397, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    6. Christopher Teh & Dyuti Banerjee & Chengsi Wang, 2022. "Acquisition-induced kill zone," Monash Economics Working Papers 2022-24, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    7. Markus Dertwinkel-Kalt & Christian Wey, 2021. "Evidence Production in Merger Control: The Role of Remedies," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 59(1), pages 1-12, August.
    8. Cosnita-Langlais Andreea & Sørgard Lars, 2018. "Enforcement and Deterrence in Merger Control: The Case of Merger Remedies," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(3), pages 1-22, November.

    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 & Tropeano, Jean-Philippe, 2012. "Do remedies affect the efficiency defense? An optimal merger-control analysis," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 58-66.
    2. Cosnita, Andreea & Tropeano, Jean-Philippe, 2009. "Negotiating remedies: Revealing the merger efficiency gains," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 188-196, March.
    3. Patrice Bougette & Florent Venayre, 2008. "Contrôles a priori et a posteriori des concentrations : comment augmenter l'efficacité des politiques de concurrence," Revue d'économie industrielle, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(1), pages 9-40.
    4. Jovanovic, Dragan & Wey, Christian, 2012. "An equilibrium analysis of efficiency gains from mergers," DICE Discussion Papers 64, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    5. Markus Dertwinkel-Kalt & Christian Wey, 2021. "Evidence Production in Merger Control: The Role of Remedies," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 59(1), pages 1-12, August.
    6. Mariana Cunha & Hélder Vasconcelos, 2018. "Sequential Mergers and Antitrust Authority’s Decisions in Stackelberg Markets," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 373-394, September.
    7. Emilie Dargaud, 2013. "Horizontal mergers, efficiency gains and remedies," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 349-372, October.
    8. Cristina Pardo-Garcia & Jose Sempere-Monerris, 2015. "Equilibrium mergers in a composite good industry with efficiencies," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 101-127, March.
    9. Duso, Tomaso & Gugler, Klaus & Yurtoglu, Burcin B., 2011. "How effective is European merger control?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 980-1006.
    10. Markus Dertwinkel-Kalt & Christian Wey, 2016. "Merger Remedies in Oligopoly under a Consumer Welfare Standard," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 32(1), pages 150-179.
    11. Tomaso Duso & Klaus Gugler & Florian Szücs, 2013. "An Empirical Assessment of the 2004 EU Merger Policy Reform," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(11), pages 596-619, November.
    12. Pedro Barros & Joseph Clougherty & Jo Seldeslachts, 2010. "How to Measure the Deterrence Effects of Merger Policy: Frequency or Composition?," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 1-8.
    13. Jo Seldeslachts & Joseph A. Clougherty & Pedro Pita Barros, 2009. "Settle for Now but Block for Tomorrow: The Deterrence Effects of Merger Policy Tools," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(3), pages 607-634, August.
    14. Cosnita-Langlais Andreea & Sørgard Lars, 2018. "Enforcement and Deterrence in Merger Control: The Case of Merger Remedies," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(3), pages 1-22, November.
    15. Tomaso Duso & Lars-Hendrik Röller & Jo Seldeslachts, 2014. "Collusion Through Joint R&D: An Empirical Assessment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(2), pages 349-370, May.
    16. Thomas Giebe & Miyu Lee, 2020. "Competitors in merger control: Shall they be merely heard or also listened to?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 431-453, June.
    17. Choné, Philippe & Linnemer, Laurent, 2008. "Assessing horizontal mergers under uncertain efficiency gains," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 913-929, July.
    18. Lagerlof, Johan N.M. & Heidhues, Paul, 2005. "On the desirability of an efficiency defense in merger control," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(9-10), pages 803-827, December.
    19. Giebe, Thomas & Lee, Miyu, 2015. "Competitors in merger control: Shall they be merely heard or also listened to?," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2015-011, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    20. Jrisy Motis, 2007. "Mergers and Acquisitions Motives," Working Papers 0730, University of Crete, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    merger remedies; efficiency defence; Merger control; Contrôle des fusions; procédure d' «efficiency defence»; remèdes des fusions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:hal:cesptp:halshs-00113503. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.