This paper analyses the effects of mergers on price and welfare in markets facing congestion and derives conditions under which a merger is consumer welfare improving, even in the absence of marginal cost savings. In our context a merger basically has two effects. First, it obviously increases market concentration. Second, it makes the new entity a more aggressive competitor. The paper shows that mergers that entail a more efficient use of installed capacity can result in important price reductions. Moreover, even when the post-merger price of the new merged entity increases, the outsiders may respond by decreasing prices and the overall effect may be a consumer welfare gain. Thus, the current merger policy may be inappropriate in these types of markets. From a policy perspective it could thus be argued that the competition authorities should demand less in terms of “standard” merger-efficiencies in order to approve the merger in a congested market, and especially when there are synergies in terms of capacity utilization.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Stockholm University, Department of Economics in its series Research Papers in Economics with number
2004:8.
Length: 21 pages Date of creation: 20 Aug 2004 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2004_0008
Contact details of provider: Postal: Department of Economics, Stockholm, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: +46 8 16 20 00 Fax: +46 8 16 14 25 Email: Web page: http://www.ne.su.se/ More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Sten Nyberg).
Find related papers by JEL classification: K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law L40 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - General
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: