IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/soecon/v66y2000i3p667-681.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Profitable Mergers in a Cournot Model of Spatial Competition

Author

Listed:
  • George Norman
  • Lynne Pepall

Abstract

This paper investigates the profitability and locational effects of mergers when Cournot firms compete in spatially differentiated markets. A two‐firm merger is generally profitable because the merged partners can coordinate their location decisions. The merged firm locates its plants outside the market quartiles with distance from the market center being an increasing function of the number of nonmerged firms remaining at the market center. Profitable two‐firm mergers reduce competitive pressure, leading to higher prices and reduced consumer surplus. The merger increases total surplus by increased locational efficiency and the increased profits of the merged and nonmerged firms.

Suggested Citation

  • George Norman & Lynne Pepall, 2000. "Profitable Mergers in a Cournot Model of Spatial Competition," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 66(3), pages 667-681, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:66:y:2000:i:3:p:667-681
    DOI: 10.1002/j.2325-8012.2000.tb00280.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2325-8012.2000.tb00280.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/j.2325-8012.2000.tb00280.x?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Greenhut, John G & Greenhut, M L, 1975. "Spatial Price Discrimination, Competition and Locational Effects," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 42(168), pages 401-419, November.
    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. George Norman & Lynne Pepall, 1998. "Horizontal Mergers in Spatially Differentiated NonCooperative Markets: a Comment," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 9804, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
    4. McAfee, R Preston & Simons, Joseph J & Williams, Michael A, 1992. "Horizontal Mergers in Spatially Differentiated Noncooperative Markets," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 349-358, December.
    5. Stephen W. Salant & Sheldon Switzer & Robert J. Reynolds, 1983. "Losses From Horizontal Merger: The Effects of an Exogenous Change in Industry Structure on Cournot-Nash Equilibrium," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(2), pages 185-199.
    6. Perry, Martin K & Porter, Robert H, 1985. "Oligopoly and the Incentive for Horizontal Merger," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 219-227, March.
    7. Szidarovszky, F. & Yakowitz, S., 1982. "Contributions to Cournot oligopoly theory," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 51-70, October.
    8. Daughety, Andrew F, 1990. "Beneficial Concentration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1231-1237, December.
    9. Davidson, Carl & Deneckere, Raymond, 1984. "Horizontal mergers and collusive behavior," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 117-132, June.
    10. Rowthorn, R E, 1992. "Intra-industry Trade and Investment under Oligopoly: The Role of Market Size," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(411), pages 402-414, March.
    11. James D. Reitzes & David T. Levy, 1995. "Price Discrimination and Mergers," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 28(2), pages 427-436, May.
    12. Raymond Deneckere & Carl Davidson, 1985. "Incentives to Form Coalitions with Bertrand Competition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(4), pages 473-486, Winter.
    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. Bisma Afzal Shah, 2019. "Shareholder Wealth Effects from Mergers and Acquisitions in the Indian Industry," Indian Journal of Commerce and Management Studies, Educational Research Multimedia & Publications,India, vol. 10(1), pages 34-47, January.
    2. Darlene Chisholm & Margaret McMillan & George Norman, 2010. "Product differentiation and film-programming choice: do first-run movie theatres show the same films?," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 34(2), pages 131-145, May.
    3. David Soberman, 2022. "Business Expansion Through Acquisition," Customer Needs and Solutions, Springer;Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG), vol. 9(3), pages 74-94, December.

    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. Lommerud, Kjell Erik & Sorgard, Lars, 1997. "Merger and product range rivalry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 21-42, November.
    2. Cosnita-Langlais, Andreea, 2012. "Horizontal market concentration: Theoretical insights from spatial models," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 22-32.
    3. George Norman & Lynne Pepall, 2000. "Spatial Competition and Location with Mergers and Product Licensing," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 37(3), pages 451-470, March.
    4. George Norman & Lynne Pepall, 1998. "Mergers in a Cournot Model of Spatial Competition: Urban Sprawl and Product Specialization," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 9813, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
    5. Zhiqi Chen & Gang Li, 2018. "Horizontal Mergers In The Presence Of Capacity Constraints," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 1346-1356, April.
    6. Verboven, Frank, 1995. "Corporate restructuring in a collusive oligopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 335-354, September.
    7. Sven-Olof Fridolfsson & Johan Stennek, 2005. "Why Mergers Reduce Profits And Raise Share Prices-A Theory Of Preemptive Mergers," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(5), pages 1083-1104, September.
    8. Emilie Dargaud & Carlo Reggiani, 2015. "On The Price Effects Of Horizontal Mergers: A Theoretical Interpretation," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(3), pages 236-255, July.
    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. John S. Heywood & Matthew McGinty, 2008. "Leading and Merging: Convex Costs, Stackelberg, and the Merger Paradox," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 74(3), pages 879-893, January.
    11. Yuan, Zhennan & Chen, Frank Y. & Yan, Xiaoming & Yu, Yugang, 2020. "Operational implications of yield uncertainty in mergers and acquisitions," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 248-258.
    12. Justin P. Johnson & Andrew Rhodes, 2021. "Multiproduct mergers and quality competition," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 52(3), pages 633-661, September.
    13. Arijit Mukherjee & Umut Erksan Senalp, 2021. "Firm‐productivity and cross border merger," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 838-859, September.
    14. Sergio Currarini & Marco A. Marini, 2015. "Coalitional Approaches to Collusive Agreements in Oligopoly Games," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 83(3), pages 253-287, June.
    15. Mariana Cunha & Hélder Vasconcelos, 2015. "Mergers in Stackelberg Markets with Efficiency Gains," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 105-134, June.
    16. Can Erutku & Patrick de Lamirande, 2009. "Merging with a buyer group member," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(7), pages 481-490.
    17. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:12:y:2007:i:12:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Rothschild, R. & Heywood, John S. & Monaco, Kristen, 2000. "Spatial price discrimination and the merger paradox," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 491-506, September.
    19. Le Pape, Nicolas & Zhao, Kai, 2014. "Horizontal mergers and uncertainty," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 8, pages 1-31.
    20. Evangelos Rouskas, 2023. "Mergers, multiperiod Cournot competition, and Coasian dynamics," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 270-286, April.
    21. Beladi, Hamid & Mukherjee, Arijit, 2012. "Footloose foreign firm and profitable domestic merger," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 186-194.

    More about this item

    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:wly:soecon:v:66:y:2000:i:3:p:667-681. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2325-8012 .

    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.