IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/scandj/v121y2019i4p1728-1756.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are Larger Merger Synergies Bad News for Consumers? Endogenous Post‐Merger Internal Organization

Author

Listed:
  • Duarte Brito
  • Margarida Catalão‐Lopes

Abstract

In this paper, we endogenize the post‐merger internal organization of firms, considering two alternative structures: multidivisional, in which separate divisions are kept, and traditional, with cost synergies. We analyze when each structure occurs in equilibrium and how it affects welfare. We show that higher synergies do not necessarily lead to higher consumer surplus: firms can opt for a merger type that does not increase consumer surplus as much as the one that would occur with lower synergies. This highlights the importance of antitrust authorities basing their decisions not just on the magnitude of eventual synergies but also on the post‐merger organizational form.

Suggested Citation

  • Duarte Brito & Margarida Catalão‐Lopes, 2019. "Are Larger Merger Synergies Bad News for Consumers? Endogenous Post‐Merger Internal Organization," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(4), pages 1728-1756, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scandj:v:121:y:2019:i:4:p:1728-1756
    DOI: 10.1111/sjoe.12303
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/sjoe.12303
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/sjoe.12303?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. Marius Schwartz & Earl A. Thompson, 1986. "Divisionalization and Entry Deterrence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(2), pages 307-321.
    2. Farrell, Joseph & Shapiro, Carl, 1990. "Horizontal Mergers: An Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 107-126, March.
    3. Joseph Farrell and Carl Shapiro., 2000. "Scale Economies and Synergies in Horizontal Merger Analysis," Economics Working Papers E00-291, University of California at Berkeley.
    4. Motta, Massimo & Vasconcelos, Helder, 2005. "Efficiency gains and myopic antitrust authority in a dynamic merger game," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(9-10), pages 777-801, December.
    5. Volker Nocke & Michael D. Whinston, 2010. "Dynamic Merger Review," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(6), pages 1201-1251.
    6. Steffen Huck & Kai A. Konrad & Wieland Müller, 2001. "Profitable Horizontal Mergers without Cost Advantages: The Role of Internal Organization, Information, and Market Structure," CESifo Working Paper Series 435, CESifo.
    7. Levin, Dan, 1990. "Horizontal Mergers: The 50-Percent Benchmark," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1238-1245, December.
    8. 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.
    9. Baye, Michael R & Crocker, Keith J & Ju, Jiandong, 1996. "Divisionalization, Franchising, and Divestiture Incentives in Oligopoly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 223-236, March.
    10. Nilssen, Tore & Sorgard, Lars, 1998. "Sequential horizontal mergers," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(9), pages 1683-1702, November.
    11. Mihkel M. Tombak, 2002. "Mergers to Monopoly," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(3), pages 513-546, September.
    12. 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.
    13. Anthony Creane & Carl Davidson, 2004. "Multidivisional firms, internal competition, and the merger paradox," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(4), pages 951-977, November.
    14. John S. Heywood & Matthew Mcginty, 2007. "Convex Costs And The Merger Paradox Revisited," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 45(2), pages 342-349, April.
    15. Mialon, Sue H., 2008. "Efficient horizontal mergers: The effects of internal capital reallocation and organizational form," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 861-877, July.
    16. Klaus Gugler & Ralph Siebert, 2007. "Market Power versus Efficiency Effects of Mergers and Research Joint Ventures: Evidence from the Semiconductor Industry," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(4), pages 645-659, November.
    17. Lommerud, Kjell Erik & Sorgard, Lars, 1997. "Merger and product range rivalry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 21-42, November.
    18. McAfee, R Preston & Williams, Michael A, 1992. "Horizontal Mergers and Antitrust Policy," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 181-187, June.
    19. Nick Feltovich, 2001. "Mergers, welfare, and concentration: Results from a model of stackelberg-cournot oligopoly," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 29(4), pages 378-392, December.
    20. Robin Kleer, 2012. "The effect of mergers on the incentive to invest in cost-reducing innovations," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 287-322, April.
    21. Larry D. Qiu & Wen Zhou, 2007. "Merger waves: a model of endogenous mergers," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(1), pages 214-226, March.
    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. Qiu, Hong & Zhu, Nan & Peng, Qiyuan, 2021. "Can a small fish become a big fish? Modeling leader-generating mergers in a Stackelberg market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    2. Han, Tien-Der & Mukherjee, Arijit, 2023. "Mergers of complements, endogenous product differentiation and welfare," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 30-41.
    3. Margarida Catalão-Lopes & Duarte Brito, 2021. "Post-merger internal organization in multitier decentralized supply chains," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 251-289, 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. Walter Ferrarese, 2021. "Merger Waves Through Market Leadership," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 7(3), pages 371-385, November.
    2. Luis Gautier & Mahelet G. Fikru, 2024. "Mergers in Cournot Markets with Environmental Externality and Product Differentiation," Natural Resource Management and Policy, in: Handbook of Merger Control and Environmental Policy, chapter 0, pages 21-46, Springer.
    3. Eileen Fumagalli & Tore Nilssen, 2019. "Sweetening the Pill: a Theory of Waiting to Merge," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 351-388, September.
    4. Kjell Erik Lommerud & Odd Rune Straume & Lars Sørgard & Odd Rune Straume, 2002. "Downstream Merger with Oligopolistic Input Suppliers," CESifo Working Paper Series 733, CESifo.
    5. BOCCARD, Nicolas, 2009. "On efficiency, concentration and welfare," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2009040, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    6. Ziss, Steffen, 2007. "Hierarchies, intra-firm competition and mergers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 237-260, April.
    7. Margarida Catalão-Lopes & Duarte Brito, 2021. "Post-merger internal organization in multitier decentralized supply chains," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 251-289, April.
    8. Jovanovic, Dragan & Wey, Christian, 2012. "An equilibrium analysis of efficiency gains from mergers," DICE Discussion Papers 64, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    9. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2015-011 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Fumagalli, Eileen & Nilssen, Tore, 2008. "Waiting to Merge," Memorandum 13/2008, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    11. Lommerud, Kjell Erik & Straume, Odd Rune & Sorgard, Lars, 2005. "Downstream merger with upstream market power," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 717-743, April.
    12. Thomas Giebe & Miyu Lee, 2020. "Competitors in merger control: Shall they be merely heard or also listened to?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 431-453, June.
    13. Mariana Cunha & Hélder Vasconcelos, 2018. "Sequential Mergers and Antitrust Authority’s Decisions in Stackelberg Markets," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 373-394, September.
    14. John S. Heywood & Matthew McGinty, 2008. "Leading and Merging: Convex Costs, Stackelberg, and the Merger Paradox," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 74(3), pages 879-893, January.
    15. Ramón Faulí-Oller & Joel Sandonís, 2001. "To Merge Or To License: Implications For Competition Policy," Working Papers. Serie AD 2001-05, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    16. Inderst, Roman & Wey, Christian, 2004. "The incentives for takeover in oligopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(8-9), pages 1067-1089, November.
    17. Qiu, Hong & Zhu, Nan & Peng, Qiyuan, 2021. "Can a small fish become a big fish? Modeling leader-generating mergers in a Stackelberg market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    18. Justin P. Johnson & Andrew Rhodes, 2021. "Multiproduct mergers and quality competition," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 52(3), pages 633-661, September.
    19. Norbäck, Pehr-Johan & Persson, Lars & Tåg, Joacim, 2010. "Buying to Sell: A Theory of Buyouts," Working Paper Series 817, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    20. Heywood, John S. & McGinty, Matthew, 2011. "Cross-border mergers in a mixed oligopoly," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1-2), pages 382-389, January.
    21. Borla, Stefania, 2012. "Spatial competition and merging incentives when firms produce complements," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 221-229.

    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:scandj:v:121:y:2019:i:4:p:1728-1756. 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://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-9442 .

    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.