VERTICAL INTEGRATION AND ANTITRUST POLICY
VERTICAL INTEGRATION AND ANTITRUST POLICY
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DOI：
10.1086/256964
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发表时间：
1950-08-01
影响因子：
8.2
通讯作者：
Spengler, Joseph J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Spengler, Joseph J.
最近的裁决表明，根据反垄断法，美国最高法院开始将合并本身视为非法。只要这一推论成立，法院就可以推定，一体化必然“不合理地”减少竞争。2法院对纵向一体化和横向一体化没有作出明显的区分。本说明的目的是表明，法院关于一体化对竞争的影响的隐含假设是错误的。与纯粹或可行的竞争相比，横向一体化可能会导致更高的价格和更不令人满意的资源分配，而且往往确实是这样做的。相反，垂直一体化本身无助于减少竞争，如果经济已经背离了竞争，则可能会起到加剧竞争的作用。让我们假设一个产品在经过三个连续的生产阶段后，A、B、C已经准备好出售给消费者。此外，假设不存在阶段的垂直一体化；生产的每个阶段都由一个指数来完成。
RECENT decisions suggest that the United States Supreme Court is beginning to look upon integration as illegal per se, under the antitrust laws. It may be presumed, in so far as this inference is valid, that the Court believes that integration necessarily reduces competition" unreasonably." 2 No sharp distinction is made by the Court between vertical and horizontal integration. It is the purpose of this note to show that the Court is mistaken in its implied assumption respecting the influence of integration upon competition. Horizontal integration may, and frequently does, make for higher prices and a less satisfactory allocation of resources than does pure or workable competition. Vertical integration, on the contrary, does not, as such, serve to reduce competition and may, if the economy is already ridden by deviations from competition, operate to intensify competition. My argument will be confined largely to this last proposition.I Let us assume a product that, upon passing through three successive stages of production, A, B, C, is ready for sale to consumers. Suppose, further, that there is no vertical integration of stages; that each stage of production is completed by an inde-