IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/ejlwec/v34y2012i3p449-475.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A theoretical approach to market definition analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Javier Elizalde

Abstract

This work performs a theoretical approach to market definition analysis. The conditions a test must satisfy are selected in order to define the relevant market according to the jurisdictions of the United States and the European Union as most tests proposed by economists tend not to satisfy all the required conditions. I use two models of horizontal product differentiation to illustrate the nature of the tests that can be used under each jurisdiction. The main conclusion of the paper is that the empirical tests for market definition which are valid in the current legislations in the United States and the European Union must be performed using a different approach which may yield different relevant markets. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Suggested Citation

  • Javier Elizalde, 2012. "A theoretical approach to market definition analysis," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 449-475, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:ejlwec:v:34:y:2012:i:3:p:449-475
    DOI: 10.1007/s10657-011-9231-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10657-011-9231-1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10657-011-9231-1?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Scheffman, David T & Spiller, Pablo T, 1987. "Geographic Market Definition under the U.S. Department of Justice Merger Guidelines," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(1), pages 123-147, April.
    2. Stigler, George J & Sherwin, Robert A, 1985. "The Extent of the Market," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(3), pages 555-585, October.
      • Stigler, George J. & Sherwin, Robert A., 1983. "The Extent of the Market," Working Papers 31, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    3. Javier Elizalde, 2013. "Market definition with differentiated products: a spatial competition application," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 471-521, December.
    4. Steven C. Salop, 1979. "Monopolistic Competition with Outside Goods," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 141-156, Spring.
    5. Hogarty, Thomas F & Elzinga, Kenneth G, 1972. "The Demand for Beer," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 54(2), pages 195-198, May.
    6. d'Aspremont, C & Gabszewicz, Jean Jaskold & Thisse, J-F, 1979. "On Hotelling's "Stability in Competition"," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(5), pages 1145-1150, September.
    7. Behringer, Stefan, 2007. "Spacial Predation in the UK Newspaper Industry," MPRA Paper 3242, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Apr 2007.
    8. Uri, Noel D & Rifkin, Edward J, 1985. "Geographic Markets, Causality and Railroad Deregulation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(3), pages 422-428, August.
    9. Klein, Chris & Rifkin, Edward J. & Uri, Noel D., 1985. "A note on defining geographic markets," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 109-119, February.
    10. Mario Forni, 2004. "Using Stationarity Tests in Antitrust Market Definition," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 6(2), pages 441-464.
    11. Neven, Damien, 1985. "Two Stage (Perfect) Equilibrium in Hotelling's Model," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 317-325, March.
    12. Economides, Nicholas, 1989. "Symmetric equilibrium existence and optimality in differentiated product markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 178-194, February.
    13. Baker, Jonathan B. & Bresnahan, Timothy F., 1988. "Estimating the residual demand curve facing a single firm," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 283-300.
    14. Slade, Margaret E, 1986. "Exogeneity Tests of Market Boundaries Applied to Petroleum Products," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(3), pages 291-303, March.
    15. Steffen Brenner, 2005. "Hotelling Games with Three, Four, and More Players," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 851-864, November.
    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. Thierry Blayac & Patrice Bougette & Christian Montet, 2014. "How consumer information curtails market power in the funeral industry," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 421-437, June.
    2. repec:inr:wpaper:248291 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Javier Elizalde, 2013. "Market definition with differentiated products: a spatial competition application," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 471-521, December.
    4. repec:inr:wpaper:248290 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Vladimír Hajko & Jaroslav Bil, 2013. "The Relevant Markets for Meat Production and Processing in the Czech Republic: Analysis of the Price Movements," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 7(3), pages 178-197, 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. Mario Forni, 2004. "Using Stationarity Tests in Antitrust Market Definition," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 6(2), pages 441-464.
    2. Javier Elizalde, 2013. "Market definition with differentiated products: a spatial competition application," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 471-521, December.
    3. Elizalde, Javier, 2013. "Competition in multiple characteristics: An empirical test of location equilibrium," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(6), pages 938-950.
    4. Bruce L. Benson & Merle D. Faminow & Milton H. Marquis & Douglas G. Sauer, 1995. "Delineating Spatial Markets Using Multivariate Time Series," The Review of Regional Studies, Southern Regional Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 247-270, Winter.
    5. Geroski, P. A., 1998. "Thinking creatively about markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 677-695, November.
    6. Ansari, A. & Economides, N. & Steckel, J., 1996. "The Max-Min-Min Principle of product Differentiation," Working Papers 96-10, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    7. Koontz, Stephen R. & Garcia, Philip, 1997. "Meat-Packer Conduct In Fed Cattle Pricing: Multiple-Market Oligopsony Power," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 22(1), pages 1-17, July.
    8. Ralph Braid, 2013. "The locations of firms on intersecting roadways," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 50(3), pages 791-808, June.
    9. Eva Audy & Can Erutku, 2005. "Price Tests to Define Markets: An Application to Wholesale Gasoline in Canda," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 137-154, June.
    10. Nicholas Economides & Joel Steckel, "undated". "The Max-Min Principle of Product Differentiation," Networks, Compatibility 94-16, Economics of Networks.
    11. Gual, Jordi, 2003. "Market Definition in the Telecoms Industry," CEPR Discussion Papers 3988, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Caplin, Andrew & Nalebuff, Barry, 1991. "Aggregation and Imperfect Competition: On the Existence of Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(1), pages 25-59, January.
    13. Amiti, Mary & Pissarides, Christopher A., 2005. "Trade and industrial location with heterogeneous labor," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 392-412, December.
    14. Gaëtan Fournier & Marco Scarsini, 2014. "Hotelling Games on Networks: Efficiency of Equilibria," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 14033, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    15. Nell, Martin & Richter, Andreas & Schiller, Jörg, 2009. "When prices hardly matter: Incomplete insurance contracts and markets for repair goods," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 343-354, April.
    16. Ralph M. Braid, 2016. "Potential merger-forcing entry reduces maximum spacing between firms in spatial competition," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(3), pages 653-669, August.
    17. Auer, Raphael A. & Sauré, Philip, 2017. "Dynamic entry in vertically differentiated markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 177-205.
    18. Graubner, Marten & Balmann, Alfons & Sexton, Richard J., 2011. "Spatial Pricing and the Location of Processors in Agricultural Markets," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 114601, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    19. Kleit, Andrew N., 2001. "Defining electricity markets: an arbitrage cost approach," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 259-270, July.
    20. Behringer, Stefan & Filistrucchi, Lapo, 2015. "Hotelling competition and political differentiation with more than two newspapers," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 36-49.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Antitrust analysis; Horizontal product differentiation; Market definition; Oligopolistic competition; D43; K21; L11; L13; L41;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices

    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:kap:ejlwec:v:34:y:2012:i:3:p:449-475. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.