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Industry Concentration and Welfare: On the Use of Stock Market Evidence from Horizontal Mergers

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  • SVEN‐OLOF FRIDOLFSSON
  • JOHAN STENNEK

Abstract

There is diverging empirical evidence on the competitive effects of horizontal mergers: consumer prices (and thus presumably competitors' profits) often rise while competitors' share prices fall. Our model of endogenous mergers provides a possible reconciliation. It is demonstrated that anti‐competitive mergers may reduce competitors' share prices, if the merger announcement informs the market that the competitors lost a race to buy the target. Also the use of ‘first rumour’ as an event may create similar problems of interpretation. We also indicate how the event‐study methodology may be adapted to identify competitive effects and thus the welfare consequences for consumers.

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  • Sven‐Olof Fridolfsson & Johan Stennek, 2010. "Industry Concentration and Welfare: On the Use of Stock Market Evidence from Horizontal Mergers," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(308), pages 734-750, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:econom:v:77:y:2010:i:308:p:734-750
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0335.2009.00795.x
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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Carletti, Elena & Ongena, Steven & Siedlarek, Jan-Peter & Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2015. "The Impact of Merger Legislation on Bank Mergers," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 530, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    4. Budzinski, Oliver, 2012. "Empirische Ex-Post Evaluation von wettbewerbspolitischen Entscheidungen: Methodische Anmerkungen," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 69, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
    5. Mats Bergman, 2008. "Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? or Measuring and Evaluating the Effectiveness of Competition Enforcement," De Economist, Springer, vol. 156(4), pages 387-409, December.
    6. Angelov, Nikolay, 2006. "Modelling firm mergers as a roommate problem," Working Paper Series 2006:10, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    7. 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.
    8. Oliver Budzinski, 2011. "Impact Evaluation of Merger Decisions," Working Papers 112/11, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Sociology, Environmental and Business Economics.
    9. 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.
    10. Keller, Andreas, 2010. "Competition effects of mergers: An event study of the German electricity market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(9), pages 5264-5271, September.
    11. Joseph A. Clougherty & Tomaso Duso, 2010. "Using Rival Effects to Identify Synergies and Improve Merger Typologies," CIG Working Papers SP II 2010-13, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
    12. Lars Sørgard, 2009. "Optimal Merger Policy: Enforcement Vs. Deterrence," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(3), pages 438-456, September.
    13. Budzinski, Oliver, 2012. "Impact evaluation of merger control decisions," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 75, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices

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