Welfare Enhancing Mergers under Product Differentiation

We follow the duopoly framework with differentiated products as in Singh and Vives (1984) and Zanchettin (2006) and examine the welfare effects of a merger between two asymmetric firms. We find that for quantity competition, the merger increases total welfare if the cost asymmetry falls into a specific range. Furthermore, this parameter range widens if the products are closer substitutes. On the other hand, mergers are never welfare enhancing in this setting when firms compete in prices.

Bundling and Foreclosure

We examine a two-sector model characterized by monopoly provision in market 1 and perfect competition in market 2. We follow the set up in Martin (1999), but we consider the case where goods 1 and 2 can be either substitutes or complements. With this framework, we analyse the profit sacrifice required if the monopolist offers a bundle consisting of one unit of good 1 and k units of good 2 to foreclose the competitive sector. Our results show that foreclosing rivals via bundling is less costly when products are complements rather than substitutes.

Can game theory be saved?

Game-theoretic analysis is a well-established part of the toolkit of economic analysis. In crucial respects, however, game theory has failed to deliver on its original promise of generating sharp predictions of behavior in situations where neoclassical microeconomics has little to say. Experience has shown that in most situations, it is possible to tell a game-theoretic story to fit almost any possible outcome. We argue that, in general, any individually rational outcome of an economic interaction may be supported as the Nash equilibrium of an appropriately chosen game, and that a wide range of these outcomes will have an economically reasonable interpretation. We consider possible attempts to salvage the original objectives of the game-theoretic research program. In at least some cases, information on institutional structures and observations of interactions between agents can be used to limit the set of strategies that may be considered reasonable.game theory, equilibrium

Endogenous Mergers under Multi-Market Competition

This paper examines a simple model of strategic interactions among firms that face at least some of the same rivals in two related markets (for goods 1 and 2). It shows that when firms compete in quantity, market prices increase as the degree of multi-market contact increases. However, the welfare consequences of multi-market contact are more complex and depend on how two fundamental forces play themselves out. The first is the selection effect, which works towards increasing welfare as shutting down the more inefficient firm is beneficial. The second opposing effect is the internalisation of the Cournot externality effect; reducing the production of good 2 allows firms to sustain a higher price for good 1. This works towards increasing prices and, therefore, decreasing consumer surplus (but increasing producer surplus). These two effects are influenced by the degree of asymmetry between markets 1 and 2 and the degree of substitutability between goods 1 and 2.

The Hold-Out Problem

Suppose a developer wants to buy n adjacent blocks of land that are currently in the possession of n different owners. The value of the blocks of land to the developer is greater than the sum of the individual values of the blocks for each owner. Under complete information about individual valuations, the developer could make a take-it-or-leave-it simultaneous offer to all owners equal to their valuations. The owners would accept the offers, the outcome would be efficient and the developer would get all the surplus. On the other hand, if the owner were to negotiate with the owners sequentially, the final division of the surplus would depend on who would have make the final offer. This individual would end up with the entire surplus and the efficient allocation would be implemented but at the expense of costly delay. Given the possible advantage that arises from being the last to make an offer, players may strategically delay the start of a negotiation. This is the hold-out problem that we examine in this paper. We develop a model in which players decide on the probability that they will go to the negotiating table with the developer. We characterise the full set of equilibria as they correspond to functions of owners valuations, and the developers valuation of subsets of land. Hold out occurs when the developer's valuation of individual blocks is the same as individual owners valuations, or if the valuation of all of the blocks of land by the developer is sufficiently large.

Testing Regulatory Consistency

We undertake an analysis of regulatory consistency using a database of publicly available regulatory decisions in Australia. We propose a simple exploratory model which allows us to test for regulatory consistency across jurisdictions and industries without detailed knowledge of the regulatory process. We compare two measures using our approach--the weighted average cost of capital and the proportion of firms’ revenue requirement claims disallowed by the regulator. We advocate use of the second measure, but our empirical results may be interpreted as indicating that a range of measures ought to be considered when assessing regulatory consistency.

An Auction Theoretical Approach to Fiscal Wars

I examine a situation where a firm has to choose to locate a new factory in one of several jurisdictions. The value of the factory may differ among jurisdictions and it depends on the private information held by each jurisdiction. Jurisdictions compete for the location of the new factory. This competition may take the form of expenditures already incurred on infrastructure, commitments to spend on infrastructure, tax incentives or even cash payments. The model combines two elements that are usually considered separately; competition is desirable because we want the factory to be located in the jurisdiction that values it the most, but competition in itself is wasteful. I show that the expected total amount paid to the firm under a large family of arrangements. Moreover, I show that the ex-ante optimal mechanism – that is, the mechanism that guarantees that the firm chooses the jurisdiction with the highest value for the factory, minimizes the total expected payment to the firm, and balances the budget in an ex-ante sense – can be implemented by running a standard auction and subsidizing participation

An Empirical Investigation of the Mergers Decision Process in Australia

In this paper we examine a database assembled from an Australian public register of 553 merger decisions taken between March 2004 and July 2008. Mergers may be accepted without public assessment, accepted in conjunction with publication of a Public Competition Assessment, or rejected. We estimate an ordered probit model, using these three possible outcomes, with the objective of gaining better insight into the regulator’s decision-making process. Our two major findings are: (i) the existence of entry barriers and the existence of undertakings are highly correlated with the regulator’s decision to closely scrutinise a merger proposal; and (ii) if we compare two decisions, one which does not mention entry barriers (or import competition) with a decision that does mention entry barriers (or import competition), then the latter is significantly more likely to be opposed than the former.

Regulation and the Option to Delay

This paper examines a simple two-period model of an investment decision in a network industry characterized by demand uncertainty, economies of scale and sunk costs. In the absence of regulation we identify the minimum price that an unregulated monopolist demands to bear the demand uncertainty and invest early, that is, the price that incorporates the value of the option to delay. In a regulated environment, we show that in the absence of downstream competition and when the regulator cannot commit to ex-post demand contingent prices, a regulated price that incorporates the option to delay is the minimum price that ensures early investment. Furthermore, when the regulator has a preference for early investment, the option to delay price generates higher welfare than other forms of price regulation. We also show that when the vertically integrated network provider is required to provide access to downstream competitors, and the potential entrant is less efficient than the incumbent, an access price that incorporates the option to delay generates the same investment level output as and higher overall welfare than an unregulated industry that is not required to provide access. By contrast, under the same market conditions an ECPR-based access price generates the same overall welfare than an unregulated industry. Moreover, when the potential entrant is more efficient than the incumbent, an Option to Delay Pricing Rule generates the same investment level output as and (weakly) higher overall welfare than the Efficient Component Pricing Rule (ECPR). In addition, the option-to-delay-based access price is (weakly) lower than the ECPR-based access price.