IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/hal-04140991.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fight Cartels or Control Mergers? On the Optimal Allocation of Enforcement Efforts within Competition Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Andreea Cosnita-Langlais

    (EconomiX - EconomiX - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Jean-Philippe Tropeano

Abstract

This paper deals with the optimal enforcement of the competition law between the merger and anti-cartel policies. We examine the interaction of these two branches of the competition policy given the budget constraint of the competition agency and taking into account the ensuing incentives for firms' behavior in terms of choice between cartels and mergers. We are thus able to conclude on the optimal competition policy mix. We show for instance that to the extent that a tougher anti-cartel action triggers more mergers taking place, the public agency will optimally invest only in control fighting for a tight budget, and then in both instruments as soon as the budget is no longer tight. However, if the merger's coordinated effect is taken into account, then when resources are scarce the agency may optimally have to spend first on controlling mergers before incurring the cost of fighting cartels.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreea Cosnita-Langlais & Jean-Philippe Tropeano, 2011. "Fight Cartels or Control Mergers? On the Optimal Allocation of Enforcement Efforts within Competition Policy," Working Papers hal-04140991, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04140991
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04140991
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-04140991/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Motta,Massimo, 2004. "Competition Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521016919, September.
    2. Farrell, Joseph & Shapiro, Carl, 1990. "Horizontal Mergers: An Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 107-126, March.
    3. Cécile Aubert & Jérôme Pouyet, 2004. "Competition policy, regulation and the institutional design of industry supervision," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 70(2), pages 153-168.
    4. Bittlingmayer, George, 1985. "Did Antitrust Policy Cause the Great Merger Wave?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(1), pages 77-118, April.
    5. Simon J. Evenett & Margaret C. Levenstein & Valerie Y. Suslow, 2001. "International Cartel Enforcement: Lessons from the 1990s," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(9), pages 1221-1245, September.
    6. Lars Sørgard, 2009. "Optimal Merger Policy: Enforcement Vs. Deterrence," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(3), pages 438-456, September.
    7. Compte, Olivier & Jenny, Frederic & Rey, Patrick, 2002. "Capacity constraints, mergers and collusion," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-29, January.
    8. Dennis Mueller, 1996. "Antimerger policy in the United States: History and lessons," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 23(3), pages 229-253, October.
    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. Pedro P. Barros & Steffen Hoernig & Tore Nilssen, 2015. "Transversal Agency and Crowding Out," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 171(4), pages 589-608, December.
    2. 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.
    3. Hüschelrath, Kai & Smuda, Florian, 2013. "Do cartel breakdowns induce mergers? Evidence from EC cartel cases," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-036, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    4. Koski, Heli & Pajarinen, Mika, 2013. "Empirical Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Competition Policy," ETLA Working Papers 15, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    5. Stephen Davies & Peter Ormosi & Martin Graffenberger, 2015. "Mergers after cartels: How markets react to cartel breakdown," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(3).
    6. Tim Reuter, 2017. "Endogenous Cartel Organization and Antitrust Fine Discrimination," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 51(3), pages 291-313, November.
    7. Robert M. Feinberg, 2016. "Anti-cartel enforcement and subsequent mergers: state-level evidence for physician groups," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(1), pages 365-372.
    8. Filomena Garcia & Jose Manuel Paz y Miño & Gustavo Torrens, 2020. "The merger paradox, collusion, and competition policy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(6), pages 2051-2081, December.
    9. Stephen Davies & Peter L. Ormosi & Martin Graffenberger, 2014. "Mergers after cartels: How markets react to cartel breakdown," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2014-01, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..

    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. 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.
    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. Darai, D. & Roux, C. & Schneider, F., 2019. "Mergers, Mavericks, and Tacit Collusion," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1984, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    5. Escrihuela-Villar Marc, 2016. "On Merger Profitability and the Intensity of Rivalry," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(2), pages 1203-1212, April.
    6. Benoît Menoni & Lionel Janin, 2007. "Le contrôle des concentrations en France : une analyse empirique des avis du Conseil de la concurrence," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 178(2), pages 93-114.
    7. Stephen Davies & Peter L. Ormosi & Martin Graffenberger, 2014. "Mergers after cartels: How markets react to cartel breakdown," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2014-01, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    8. Cook, Paul, 2002. "Competition Policy, Market Power and Collusion in Developing Countries," Centre on Regulation and Competition (CRC) Working papers 30681, University of Manchester, Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM).
    9. Filomena Garcia & Jose Manuel Paz y Miño & Gustavo Torrens, 2020. "The merger paradox, collusion, and competition policy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(6), pages 2051-2081, December.
    10. Stephen Davies & Peter Ormosi & Martin Graffenberger, 2015. "Mergers after cartels: How markets react to cartel breakdown," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(3).
    11. Helder Vasconcelos, 2010. "Efficiency Gains And Structural Remedies In Merger Control," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 742-766, December.
    12. Joseph E. Harrington, Jr, 2005. "Detecting Cartels," Economics Working Paper Archive 526, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    13. 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).
    14. Boone, Jan, 2004. "Balance of Power," CEPR Discussion Papers 4733, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Nilssen, Tore & Sorgard, Lars, 1998. "Sequential horizontal mergers," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(9), pages 1683-1702, November.
    16. Emilie Dargaud, 2006. "Mergers and collusion with asymmetric capacities," Post-Print halshs-00140138, HAL.
    17. Luke Garrod & Matthew Olczak, 2017. "Collusion Under Imperfect Monitoring with Asymmetric Firms," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(3), pages 654-682, September.
    18. Stephen Davies & Matthew Olczak & Heather Coles, 2007. "Tacit collusion, firm asymmetries and numbers: evidence from EC merger cases," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2007-07, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    19. Stephen Davies & Matthew Olczak, 2010. "Assessing the Efficacy of Structural Merger Remedies: Choosing Between Theories of Harm?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 37(2), pages 83-99, September.
    20. Chen, Jiawei, 2009. "The effects of mergers with dynamic capacity accumulation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 92-109, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    competition law enforcement; antitrust; merger control; anti-cartel policy;
    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:wpaper:hal-04140991. 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.