Price Effects of Horizontal Mergers
Price Effects of Horizontal Mergers
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横向合并的价格效应
DOI：
10.15779/z382726
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发表时间：
1989
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
R. Lande
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Alan A. Fisher;Frederick I. Johnson;R. Lande
政府应该在什么时候挑战一项可能会增强市场力量、但也会带来效率提升的合并？主流观点认为，政府和法院应该仅从经济效益的角度对这些合并进行评估。然而，国会希望法院阻止任何可能大幅提高价格的合并。因此，极有可能获得的效率收益应该会影响合并的合法性，因为它们可能会阻止价格上涨。这一标准比经济效率标准更严格，因为后者将允许合并极有可能导致更高的价格，如果充分的效率收益基本上是可能的。作者在最相关的背景下分析了市场力量增加和效率收益的竞争价格效应：集中市场中的重大合并-寡头垄断。他们得出了四个一般的寡头垄断模型，并在所有合理的范围内对它们的基本参数进行了评估。通过使用合并指南标准和联邦贸易委员会仔细审查的合并数据，作者分析了市场力量增加和效率收益之间的经验相关性权衡。他们发现，将边际成本降低0%至9%可能是必要的，以防止政府定期评估的典型合并带来的价格上涨。在这一范围的较高部分，节省的成本远远大于之前作者提出的弥补大多数合并造成的效率损失所必需的成本。它们也远远超过了人们可以现实地预测到的几乎任何合并所带来的效率提升。此外，如果合并显著增加了串通的可能性，所需的成本节约将更大。作者的模型和大量实际考虑表明，通过调整横向合并的标准来隐含地考虑效率收益，将比显式的逐案效率辩护更好。
When should the government challenge a merger that might increase market power but also generate efficiency gains? The dominant belief has been that the government and courts should evaluate these mergers solely in terms of economic efficiency. Congress, however, wanted the courts to stop any merger significantly likely to raise prices. Substantially likely efficiency gains should therefore affect the legality of mergers to the extent that they are likely to prevent price increases. This standard is more strict than the economic efficiency criterion, because the latter would permit mergers substantially likely to lead to higher prices, if sufficient efficiency gains were substantially likely.The authors analyze the competing price effects of market power increases and efficiency gains in the most relevant context: significant mergers in concentrated markets - oligopoly. They derive four general oligopoly models and evaluate them over all reasonable ranges for their underlying parameters. This methodology avoids biases due to overly restrictive assumptions.By using the Merger Guideline standards and data from mergers that the Federal Trade Commission closely examined, the authors analyze empirically relevant tradeoffs between market power increases and efficiency gains. They find that decreases in marginal costs of 0 to 9% could be necessary to prevent price gains from mergers typical of those the government regularly evaluates. Cost savings in the upper portions of this range are far larger than those that previous authors have suggested would be necessary to compensate for efficiency losses from most mergers. They are also far greater than efficiency gains that one could realistically predict from virtually any merger. Moreover, if a merger significantly increased the probability of collusion, the required cost savings would be even greater.The authors' models and a large number of practical considerations suggest that implicit consideration of efficiency gains, through adjustment of the standards for horizontal mergers, would be better than an explicit case-by-case efficiency defense.