IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/7954.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Mergers in Two-Sided Markets: An Application to the Canadian Newspaper Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Chandra, Ambarish
  • Collard-Wexler, Allan

Abstract

In this paper we study mergers in two-sided industries. While mergers have been studied extensively in traditional industries, and there is a large and rapidly evolving literature on two-sided markets, there has been little work empirically examining mergers in these markets. We present a model that shows that mergers in two-sided markets may not necessarily lead to higher prices for either side of the market. We test our conclusions by examining a spate of mergers in the Canadian newspaper industry in the late 1990s. Specifically, we analyze prices for both circulation and advertising to try to understand the impact that these mergers had on consumer welfare. We find that greater concentration did not lead to higher prices for either newspaper subscribers or advertisers.

Suggested Citation

  • Chandra, Ambarish & Collard-Wexler, Allan, 2008. "Mergers in Two-Sided Markets: An Application to the Canadian Newspaper Industry," MPRA Paper 7954, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:7954
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/7954/1/MPRA_paper_7954.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ambarish Chandra, 2009. "Targeted Advertising: The Role Of Subscriber Characteristics In Media Markets," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 58-84, March.
    2. Matthew Gentzkow, 2007. "Valuing New Goods in a Model with Complementarity: Online Newspapers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 713-744, June.
    3. Meghan R. Busse, 2000. "Multimarket Contact and Price Coordination in the Cellular Telephone Industry," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(3), pages 287-320, June.
    4. Alberto Abadie & David Drukker & Jane Leber Herr & Guido W. Imbens, 2004. "Implementing matching estimators for average treatment effects in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 4(3), pages 290-311, September.
    5. Marc Rysman, 2004. "Competition Between Networks: A Study of the Market for Yellow Pages," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(2), pages 483-512.
    6. Dertouzos, James N & Trautman, William B, 1990. "Economic Effects of Media Concentration: Estimates from a Model of the Newspaper Firm," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 1-14, September.
    7. Kaiser, Ulrich & Song, Minjae, 2009. "Do media consumers really dislike advertising? An empirical assessment of the role of advertising in print media markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 292-301, March.
    8. Thompson, R Stephen, 1989. "Circulation versus Advertiser Appeal in the Newspaper Industry: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3), pages 259-271, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro & Michael Sinkinson, 2014. "Competition and Ideological Diversity: Historical Evidence from US Newspapers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3073-3114, October.
    2. Filistrucchi, L. & Gerardin, D. & van Damme, E.E.C. & Keunen, S. & Klein, T.J. & Michielsen, T.O. & Wileur, J., 2010. "Mergers in Two-Sided Markets - A Report to the NMa," Other publications TiSEM f901d1fe-8878-444e-a685-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Charles Angelucci & Julia Cagé, 2019. "Newspapers in Times of Low Advertising Revenues," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 319-364, August.
    4. Adithya Pattabhiramaiah & S. Sriram & Shrihari Sridhar, 2018. "Rising Prices Under Declining Preferences: The Case of the U.S. Print Newspaper Industry," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(1), pages 97-122, January.
    5. Simon P. Anderson & Bruno Jullien, 2015. "The advertising-financed business model in two-sided media markets," Post-Print hal-02866192, HAL.
    6. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4edekc99or8n2bu86nu4ua8adl is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/26t617gatp86qree1dejcpchbr is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Kaiser, Ulrich & Wright, Julian, 2006. "Price structure in two-sided markets: Evidence from the magazine industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 1-28, January.
    9. Ambarish Chandra & Ulrich Kaiser, 2014. "Targeted Advertising in Magazine Markets and the Advent of the Internet," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(7), pages 1829-1843, July.
    10. Robert Seamans & Feng Zhu, 2014. "Responses to Entry in Multi-Sided Markets: The Impact of Craigslist on Local Newspapers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(2), pages 476-493, February.
    11. Lapo Filistrucchi & Tobias J. Klein, 2013. "Price Competition in Two-Sided Markets with Heterogeneous Consumers and Network Effects," Working Papers 13-20, NET Institute.
    12. Marco Antonielli & Lapo Filistrucchi, 2011. "Collusion and the political differentiation of newspapers," Working Papers 11-26, NET Institute, revised Nov 2011.
    13. Frijters Paul & Velamuri Malathi, 2010. "Is the Internet Bad News? The Online News Era and the Market for High-Quality News," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 1-33, June.
    14. Lin Panlang, 2011. "Market Provision of Program Quality in the Television Broadcasting Industry," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-22, March.
    15. Affeldt, P. & Argentesi, E. & Filistrucchi, Lapo, 2021. "Estimating Demand with Multi-Homing in Two-Sided Markets," Other publications TiSEM 1317bf39-d02e-4f61-a34f-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    16. Stefan Behringer & Lapo Filistrucchi, 2009. "Price Wars in Two-Sided Markets: The case of the UK Quality Newspapers," Working Papers 09-26, NET Institute, revised Dec 2009.
    17. Joan Calzada & Guillem Ordóñez, 2012. "Competition in the news industry: fighting aggregators with versions and links," Working Papers 12-22, NET Institute.
    18. Lapo Filistrucchi & Damien Geradin & Eric van Damme, 2012. "Identifying Two-Sided Markets," Working Papers - Economics wp2012_01.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    19. Xiang Hui & Meng Liu, 2022. "Quality Certificates Alleviate Consumer Aversion to Sponsored Search Advertising," CESifo Working Paper Series 9886, CESifo.
    20. Senay Sokullu, 2012. "Nonparametric Analysis of Two-Sided Markets," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 12/628, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    21. Dietl Helmut & Lin Panlang & Lang Markus, 2023. "The Effects of Introducing Advertising in Pay TV: A Model of Asymmetric Competition between Pay TV and Free TV," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 23(1), pages 291-326, January.
    22. Ambarish Chandra, 2009. "Targeted Advertising: The Role Of Subscriber Characteristics In Media Markets," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 58-84, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mergers; Two-Sided Markets; Newspapers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L4 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:7954. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.