IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/buecrs/v74y2022i4p1053-1066.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of optimal cross holding in an asymmetric oligopoly

Author

Listed:
  • Hongkun Ma
  • Chenhang Zeng

Abstract

This paper studies the endogenous formation of cross holding and its welfare implications in an asymmetric Cournot oligopoly with one acquiring firm holding passive ownership in one of its rivals. With the presence of cost asymmetry, we show that the acquiring firm will always choose to hold ownership in the most efficient rival. The optimal level of ownership is determined by market demand, the number, and cost distribution of firms. We further analyze the welfare implications of cross holding and characterize both socially excessive and insufficient cross holdings.

Suggested Citation

  • Hongkun Ma & Chenhang Zeng, 2022. "The effects of optimal cross holding in an asymmetric oligopoly," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(4), pages 1053-1066, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:buecrs:v:74:y:2022:i:4:p:1053-1066
    DOI: 10.1111/boer.12331
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/boer.12331
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/boer.12331?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. Foros, Øystein & Jarle Kind, Hans & Shaffer, Greg, 2011. "Mergers and partial ownership," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 916-926.
    2. Matthew J. Clayton & Bjorn N. Jorgensen, 2005. "Optimal Cross Holding with Externalities and Strategic Interactions," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(4), pages 1505-1522, July.
    3. Mukhopadhyay, Sankar & Kabiraj, Tarun & Mukherjee, Arijit, 1999. "Technology transfer in duopoly The role of cost asymmetry," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 363-374, November.
    4. David Gilo & Yossi Moshe & Yossi Spiegel, 2006. "Partial cross ownership and tacit collusion," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(1), pages 81-99, March.
    5. Jovanovic, Dragan & Wey, Christian, 2014. "Passive partial ownership, sneaky takeovers, and merger control," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 125(1), pages 32-35.
    6. Farrell, Joseph & Shapiro, Carl, 1990. "Horizontal Mergers: An Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 107-126, March.
    7. Malueg, David A., 1992. "Collusive behavior and partial ownership of rivals," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 27-34, March.
    8. Flath, David, 1991. "When is it rational for firms to acquire silent interests in rivals?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 573-583, December.
    9. Reitman, David, 1994. "Partial Ownership Arrangements and the Potential for Collusion," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 313-322, September.
    10. Arghya Ghosh & Hodaka Morita, 2017. "Knowledge transfer and partial equity ownership," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 48(4), pages 1044-1067, December.
    11. 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.
    12. Judy Hsu & Longhua Liu & X. Henry Wang & Chenhang Zeng, 2019. "Ad Valorem Versus Per‐unit Royalty Licensing in a Cournot Duopoly Model," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 87(6), pages 890-901, December.
    13. Brito, Duarte & Cabral, Luís & Vasconcelos, Helder, 2014. "Divesting ownership in a rival," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 9-24.
    14. Dietzenbacher, Erik & Smid, Bert & Volkerink, Bjorn, 2000. "Horizontal integration in the Dutch financial sector," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(8), pages 1223-1242, December.
    15. 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.
    16. Joseph Farrell & Carl Shapiro, 1990. "Asset Ownership and Market Structure in Oligopoly," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(2), pages 275-292, Summer.
    17. Wilson A. Alley, 1997. "Partial Ownership Arrangements and Collusion in the Automobile Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 191-205, June.
    18. Reynolds, Robert J. & Snapp, Bruce R., 1986. "The competitive effects of partial equity interests and joint ventures," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 141-153, June.
    19. David Gilo & Yossi Moshe & Yossi Spiegel, 2006. "Partial Cross Ownership and Tacit Collusion," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(1), pages 81-99, Spring.
    20. Li, Sanxi & Ma, Hongkun & Zeng, Chenhang, 2015. "Passive cross holding as a strategic entry deterrence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 37-40.
    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. Jing Fang & Jingyi Huang & Chenhang Zeng, 2024. "Passive cross‐holdings, horizontal differentiation, and welfare," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(2), pages 508-528, April.
    2. Xingtang Wang & Leonard F. S. Wang, 2023. "Vertical shareholding, vertical product differentiation and social welfare," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(3), pages 478-494, July.
    3. Hao Cheng & Xiaoting Wu & Chenhang Zeng, 2024. "Can cross-holdings benefit consumers?," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 245-273, April.

    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. Jie Shuai & Mengyuan Xia & Chenhang Zeng, 2023. "Upstream market structure and downstream partial ownership," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 22-47, January.
    2. Dai, Miao & Benchekroun, Hassan & Long, Ngo Van, 2022. "On the profitability of cross-ownership in Cournot nonrenewable resource oligopolies: Stock size matters," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    3. Jianxia Yang & Chenhang Zeng, 2021. "Collusive stability of cross-holding with cost asymmetry," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 91(4), pages 549-566, November.
    4. Hariskos, W. & Königstein, M. & Papadopoulos, K.G., 2022. "Anti-competitive effects of partial cross-ownership: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 399-409.
    5. Karle, H. & Klein, T.J. & Stahl, K.O., 2011. "Ownership and Control in a Competitive Industry," Other publications TiSEM 75fbaeb6-c5b2-498b-93b9-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    6. Patricia Charléty & Marie-Cécile Fagart & Saïd Souam, 2009. "Incentives for Partial Acquisitions and Real Market Concentration," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 165(3), pages 508-534, September.
    7. Jovanovic, Dragan & Wey, Christian, 2014. "Passive partial ownership, sneaky takeovers, and merger control," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 125(1), pages 32-35.
    8. Arijit Mukherjee, 2023. "Losses from cross-holdings in a duopoly with convex cost and strategic input price determination," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 11(1), pages 81-91, April.
    9. Sven Heim & Kai Hhschelrath & Ulrich Laitenberger & Yossi Spiegel, 2017. "Minority Share Acquisitions and Collusion: Evidence from the Introduction of National Leniency Programs," Working Papers hal-01952937, HAL.
    10. Amrita Nain & Yan Wang, 2018. "The Product Market Impact of Minority Stake Acquisitions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(2), pages 825-844, February.
    11. Li, Sanxi & Ma, Hongkun & Zeng, Chenhang, 2015. "Passive cross holding as a strategic entry deterrence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 37-40.
    12. Qing Hu & Aika Monden & Tomomichi Mizuno, 2022. "Downstream Cross‐Holdings and Upstream R&D," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(3), pages 775-789, September.
    13. Shekhar, Shiva & Wey, Christian, 2017. "Uncertain merger synergies, passive partial ownership, and merger control," DICE Discussion Papers 260, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    14. Benndorf, Volker & Odenkirchen, Johannes, 2021. "An experiment on partial cross-ownership in oligopolistic markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    15. Juan Carlos Bárcena‐Ruiz & Amagoia Sagasta, 2021. "Cross‐ownership and corporate social responsibility," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 89(4), pages 367-384, July.
    16. Samuel Haas & Johannes Paha, 2021. "Non-Controlling Minority Shareholdings and Collusion," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 58(3), pages 431-454, May.
    17. Dong, Quan & Chang, Yang-Ming, 2020. "Emission taxes vs. environmental standards under partial ownership arrangements," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 250-262.
    18. Azar, José & Schmalz, Martin & Tecu, Isabel, 2017. "Anti-Competitive Effects of Common Ownership," IESE Research Papers D/1169, IESE Business School.
    19. Brito, Duarte & Cabral, Luís & Vasconcelos, Helder, 2014. "Divesting ownership in a rival," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 9-24.
    20. Koch, Andrew & Panayides, Marios & Thomas, Shawn, 2021. "Common ownership and competition in product markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 109-137.

    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:bla:buecrs:v:74:y:2022:i:4:p:1053-1066. 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: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0307-3378 .

    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.