IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/revind/v47y2015i1p71-89.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Merger Policy at the Margin: Western Refining’s Acquisition of Giant Industries

Author

Listed:
  • Nicholas Kreisle

Abstract

In May 2007, a United States District Court declined to grant the Federal Trade Commission a preliminary injunction that would have blocked the merger of two petroleum refiners that served Albuquerque, New Mexico, and surrounding areas. This study compares estimates of the post-merger price effect to the price effects that were predicted by economic experts on both sides of the case. I find little scope to interpret the evidence as consistent with an anticompetitive post-merger price effect. I also highlight the difficulties that are involved in econometrically identifying small effects even with an abundance of pricing data. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York (outside the USA) 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Nicholas Kreisle, 2015. "Merger Policy at the Margin: Western Refining’s Acquisition of Giant Industries," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 47(1), pages 71-89, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:revind:v:47:y:2015:i:1:p:71-89
    DOI: 10.1007/s11151-015-9463-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11151-015-9463-2
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11151-015-9463-2?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Hosken & Louis Silvia & Christopher Taylor, 2011. "Does Concentration Matter? Measurement of Petroleum Merger Price Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 45-50, May.
    2. Christopher T. Taylor & Daniel S. Hosken, 2007. "The Economic Effects Of The Marathon‐Ashland Joint Venture: The Importance Of Industry Supply Shocks And Vertical Market Structure," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(3), pages 419-451, September.
    3. Orley Ashenfelter & Daniel Hosken & Matthew Weinberg, 2009. "Generating Evidence to Guide Merger Enforcement," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 5.
    4. Unknown & Dennis Carlton, 2009. "Why We Need to Measure the Effect of Merger Policy and How to Do It," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 5.
    5. repec:pri:cepsud:183ashenfelter is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Justine S. Hastings & Richard J. Gilbert, 2005. "Market Power, Vertical Integration And The Wholesale Price Of Gasoline," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 469-492, December.
    7. White, Halbert, 2006. "Time-series estimation of the effects of natural experiments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 135(1-2), pages 527-566.
    8. John Simpson & Christopher Taylor, 2008. "Do Gasoline Mergers Affect Consumer Prices? The Marathon Ashland Petroleum and Ultramar Diamond Shamrock Transaction," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(1), pages 135-152, February.
    9. Orley Ashenfelter & Daniel Hosken & Matthew Weinberg, 2009. "Generating Evidence to Guide Merger Enforcement," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 5.
    10. Louis Silvia & Christopher T. Taylor, 2013. "Petroleum Mergers and Competition in the Northeast United States," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 97-124, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Orley Ashenfelter & Daniel Hosken & Matthew Weinberg, 2014. "Did Robert Bork Understate the Competitive Impact of Mergers? Evidence from Consummated Mergers," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(S3), pages 67-100.
    2. Brito, Duarte & Pereira, Pedro & Ramalho, Joaquim J.S., 2013. "Mergers, coordinated effects and efficiency in the Portuguese non-life insurance industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 554-568.
    3. Pennerstorfer, Dieter & Weiss, Christoph, 2013. "Spatial clustering and market power: Evidence from the retail gasoline market," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 661-675.
    4. Orley Ashenfelter & Daniel Hosken, 2010. "The Effect of Mergers on Consumer Prices: Evidence from Five Mergers on the Enforcement Margin," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(3), pages 417-466.
    5. Orley C. Ashenfelter & Daniel Hosken & Matthew Weinberg, 2009. "Generating Evidence to Guide Merger Enforcement," Working Papers 1137, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    6. Emilie Dargaud & Carlo Reggiani, 2015. "On The Price Effects Of Horizontal Mergers: A Theoretical Interpretation," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(3), pages 236-255, July.
    7. Joseph Farrell & Paul Pautler & Michael Vita, 2009. "Economics at the FTC: Retrospective Merger Analysis with a Focus on Hospitals," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 35(4), pages 369-385, December.
    8. Orley C. Ashenfelter & Daniel S. Hosken & Matthew C. Weinberg, 2015. "Efficiencies brewed: pricing and consolidation in the US beer industry," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(2), pages 328-361, June.
    9. Franco Mariuzzo & Peter L. Ormosi, 2017. "Post-merger price dynamics matter, so why do merger retrospectives ignore them?," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2016-05, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    10. Romahn, André & Friberg, Richard, 2012. "Ex-Post Merger Review and Divestitures," IESE Research Papers D/1056, IESE Business School.
    11. Packalen, Mikko & Sen, Anindya, 2013. "Static and dynamic merger effects: A market share based empirical analysis," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 12-24.
    12. Emilie Dargaud & Carlo Reggiani, "undated". "Horizontal Mergers in the Spokes Model," Discussion Papers 09/12, Department of Economics, University of York.
    13. Davies, Stephen & Olczak, Matthew & Coles, Heather, 2011. "Tacit collusion, firm asymmetries and numbers: Evidence from EC merger cases," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 221-231, March.
    14. Grigolon, Laura & Leheyda, Nina & Verboven, Frank, 2016. "Scrapping subsidies during the financial crisis — Evidence from Europe," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 41-59.
    15. Stephen Davies & Matthew Olczak & Heather Coles, 2007. "Tacit collusion, firm asymmetries and numbers: evidence from EC merger cases," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2007-07, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    16. Stöhr, Annika, 2021. "Price effects of horizontal mergers: A retrospective on retrospectives," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 151, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
    17. Robert Kulick, 2017. "Ready-to-Mix: Horizontal Mergers, Prices, and Productivity," Working Papers 17-38, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    18. Orley Ashenfelter & Daniel Hosken & Matthew Weinberg, 2009. "Generating Evidence to Guide Merger Enforcement," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 5.
    19. Adriana Nikolic & Christoph Weiss, 2014. "Spatial interactions in location decisions: Empirical evidence from a Bayesian spatial probit model," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp177, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    20. repec:dgr:rugsom:14027-eef is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Jason Allen & Robert Clark & Jean-François Houde, 2012. "Price Competition and Concentration in Search and Negotiation Markets: Evidence from Mortgage Lending," Staff Working Papers 12-4, Bank of Canada.

    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:kap:revind:v:47:y:2015:i:1:p:71-89. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.