IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/revind/v48y2016i1p45-68.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unilateral Effects Analysis in Differentiated Product Markets: Guidelines, Policy, and Change

Author

Listed:
  • Malcolm Coate
  • Shawn Ulrick

Abstract

The Merger Guidelines highlight unilateral effects analysis as the primary anticompetitive theory in differentiated product markets. This study evaluates the Federal Trade Commission’s historical record to determine what considerations drive the internal review process, if these considerations depend on the type of competition within the differentiated market under review, and if policy has changed much over the 20 years since the 1992 Merger Guidelines were issued. The results identify the importance of price-based competition to the analysis, as markets that are characterized by price competition tend to generate significantly higher estimates for the probability of a unilateral effects finding, all else equal, especially when repositioning is difficult. Moreover, a little fluctuation is detected in policy, but no real evidence of change over the 20-year period of the study exists. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York (outside the USA) 2016

Suggested Citation

  • Malcolm Coate & Shawn Ulrick, 2016. "Unilateral Effects Analysis in Differentiated Product Markets: Guidelines, Policy, and Change," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 48(1), pages 45-68, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:revind:v:48:y:2016:i:1:p:45-68
    DOI: 10.1007/s11151-015-9478-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11151-015-9478-8
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11151-015-9478-8?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. Stephen Davies & Matthew Olczak, 2008. "Tacit versus Overt Collusion Firm Asymmetries and Numbers: What's the Evidence?," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2008-32, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    2. Stephen Davies & Matthew Olczak, 2008. "Tacit vs. Overt Collusion Firm Asymmetries and Numbers: What's the Evidence?," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 4.
    3. Greene,William H. & Hensher,David A., 2010. "Modeling Ordered Choices," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521194204.
    4. Mathia Sinning & Markus Hahn & Thomas K. Bauer, 2008. "The Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition for nonlinear regression models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 8(4), pages 480-492, December.
    5. Szücs, Florian, 2012. "Investigating transatlantic merger policy convergence," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 654-662.
    6. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    7. Malcolm Coate, 2008. "Alive and Kicking: Collusion Theories in Merger Analysis at the Federal Trade Commission," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 4.
    8. Farrell Joseph & Shapiro Carl, 2010. "Antitrust Evaluation of Horizontal Mergers: An Economic Alternative to Market Definition," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-41, March.
    9. Mats Bergman & Malcolm Coate & Maria Jakobsson & Shawn Ulrick, 2010. "Comparing Merger Policies in the European Union and the United States," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 36(4), pages 305-331, June.
    10. Glenn Hoetker, 2007. "The use of logit and probit models in strategic management research: Critical issues," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 331-343, April.
    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. Malcolm B. Coate & Shawn W. Ulrick, 2016. "Unilateral Effects Analysis in Differentiated Product Markets: Guidelines, Policy, and Change," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 48(1), pages 45-68, February.
    2. Jakub Picka, 2014. "Problém "public-private pay gap" v České republice [The Public-Private Pay Gap in the Czech Republic]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2014(5), pages 662-682.
    3. Brandon Vick, 2017. "Measuring links between labor monopsony and the gender pay gap in Brazil," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-28, December.
    4. Powers, Daniel A. & Yun, Myeong-Su, 2009. "Multivariate Decomposition for Hazard Rate Models," IZA Discussion Papers 3971, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Yun Liang & John Gibson, 2017. "Location or Hukou: What Most Limits Fertility of Urban Women in China?," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(3), pages 527-540, September.
    6. Iwan Bos & Ronald Peeters & Erik Pot, 2013. "Do antitrust agencies facilitate meetings in smoke-filled rooms?," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(6), pages 611-614, April.
    7. Bookwalter, Jeffrey & Fitch-Fleischmann, Benjamin & Dalenberg, Douglas, 2011. "Understanding life-satisfaction changes in post-apartheid South Africa," MPRA Paper 34579, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Affeldt, Pauline & Duso, Tomaso & Szücs, Florian, 2021. "25 years of European merger control," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    9. Laetitia Hauret & Donald R. Williams, 2017. "Cross-National Analysis of Gender Differences in Job Satisfaction," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 203-235, April.
    10. Lawrence M. Berger & Sara S. McLanahan, 2011. "Child Wellbeing in Two-Parent Families: How Do Characteristics and Relationships Matter?," Working Papers 1322, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    11. Wolff, François-Charles, 2012. "Decomposition of non-linear models using simulated residuals," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 346-348.
    12. Granlund, David & Rudholm, Niklas, 2023. "Calculating the probability of collusion based on observed price patterns," Umeå Economic Studies 1014, Umeå University, Department of Economics, revised 13 Oct 2023.
    13. Roberta Longo & Marisa Miraldo & Andrew Street, 2008. "Price regulation of pluralistic markets subject to provider collusion," Working Papers 045cherp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    14. repec:pri:crcwel:wp11-13-ff is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Lee, Jinkook & McGovern, Mark E. & Bloom, David E. & Arokiasamy, P. & Risbud, Arun & O’Brien, Jennifer & Kale, Varsha & Hu, Peifeng, 2015. "Education, gender, and state-level disparities in the health of older Indians: Evidence from biomarker data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 145-156.
    16. Meijuan Wang & Denis Nadolnyak & Valentina Hartarska, 2021. "Gender Differences in Child Malnutrition in Ethiopia: Evidence from Three Decomposition Techniques," Research in Applied Economics, Macrothink Institute, vol. 13(3), pages 67-94, September.
    17. Caliendo, Marco & Künn, Steffen & Weissenberger, Martin, 2020. "Catching up or lagging behind? The long-term business and innovation potential of subsidized start-ups out of unemployment," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(10).
    18. Bukstein, Daniel & Gandelman, Néstor, 2019. "Glass ceilings in research: Evidence from a national program in Uruguay," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(6), pages 1550-1563.
    19. Laetitia Duval & François-Charles Wolff, 2016. "“I even met happy gypsies”," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 24(4), pages 727-764, October.
    20. Vogel, Matt & van Ham, Maarten, 2016. "Disentangling Neighborhood Effects in Person-Context Research: An Application of a Neighborhood-Based Group Decomposition," IZA Discussion Papers 9793, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Dang, Rui, 2016. "A decomposition analysis of cigarette consumption differences between male Turkish immigrants and Germans in West Germany 2002-2012," Ruhr Economic Papers 602, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.

    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:48:y:2016:i:1:p:45-68. 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.