IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/revind/v59y2021i4d10.1007_s11151-021-09845-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economics at the FTC: Multi-level Marketing and a Coal Joint Venture

Author

Listed:
  • Marta Wosińska

    (Federal Trade Commission, Bureau of Economics)

  • David Givens

    (Federal Trade Commission, Bureau of Economics)

  • Yan Lau

    (Federal Trade Commission, Bureau of Economics)

  • Doug S. Smith

    (Federal Trade Commission, Bureau of Economics)

  • Christopher Taylor

    (Federal Trade Commission, Bureau of Economics)

  • Benjamin Wallace

    (Federal Trade Commission, Bureau of Economics)

Abstract

Economists in the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Economics support the Commission’s dual missions of protecting consumers and maintaining competition by performing economic analyses. This article provides two examples of such work product: The first is a description of an analytical framework that FTC consumer protection economists use to assess multi-level marketing organizations. The second is a description of economic analysis that was undertaken to assess the effect of a joint venture between two coal companies that ultimately was challenged by the Commission.

Suggested Citation

  • Marta Wosińska & David Givens & Yan Lau & Doug S. Smith & Christopher Taylor & Benjamin Wallace, 2021. "Economics at the FTC: Multi-level Marketing and a Coal Joint Venture," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 59(4), pages 629-650, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:revind:v:59:y:2021:i:4:d:10.1007_s11151-021-09845-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s11151-021-09845-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11151-021-09845-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11151-021-09845-8?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. Farrell, Joseph & Shapiro, Carl, 1988. "Horizontal Mergers: An Equilibrium Analysis," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt0tp305nx, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    2. Moresi, Serge & Zenger, Hans, 2018. "Recapture ratios in merger analysis," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 136-138.
    3. Farrell, Joseph & Shapiro, Carl, 1990. "Horizontal Mergers: An Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 107-126, March.
    4. Froeb, Luke M. & Werden, Gregory J., 1998. "A robust test for consumer welfare enhancing mergers among sellers of a homogeneous product," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 367-369, March.
    5. Christopher Conlon & Julie Holland Mortimer, 2021. "Empirical properties of diversion ratios," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 52(4), pages 693-726, December.
    6. Daniel Greenfield & Bruce Kobayashi & Jeremy Sandford & Christopher Taylor & Nathan Wilson, 2019. "Economics at the FTC: Quantitative Analyses of Two Chemical Manufacturing Mergers," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 55(4), pages 607-623, December.
    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. Nathan H. Miller & Gloria Sheu, 2021. "Quantitative Methods for Evaluating the Unilateral Effects of Mergers," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 58(1), pages 143-177, February.
    2. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    3. Emilie Dargaud, 2013. "Horizontal mergers, efficiency gains and remedies," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 349-372, October.
    4. Marie Goppelsroeder & Maarten Pieter Schinkel & Jan Tuinstra, 2008. "Quantifying The Scope For Efficiency Defense In Merger Control: The Werden‐Froeb‐Index," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(4), pages 778-808, December.
    5. Zhiqi Chen & Gang Li, 2018. "Do Merger Efficiencies Always Mitigate Price Increases?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(1), pages 95-125, March.
    6. Gugler, Klaus & Szücs, Florian, 2016. "Merger externalities in oligopolistic markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 230-254.
    7. Volker Nocke & Nicolas Schutz, 2023. "Merger Analysis with IIA Demand and Type Aggregation," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_459, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    8. Cristina Pardo-Garcia & Jose Sempere-Monerris, 2015. "Equilibrium mergers in a composite good industry with efficiencies," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 101-127, March.
    9. Daniel Greenfield & Bruce Kobayashi & Jeremy Sandford & Christopher Taylor & Nathan Wilson, 2019. "Economics at the FTC: Quantitative Analyses of Two Chemical Manufacturing Mergers," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 55(4), pages 607-623, December.
    10. Linde, Sebastian & Siebert, Ralph B., 2023. "Exploring the incremental merger value from multimarket and technology arguments," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    11. Kai Hüschelrath, 2009. "Detection Of Anticompetitive Horizontal Mergers," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(4), pages 683-721.
    12. Nilsson, Mats, 2005. "Electric power oligopoly and suspicious minds--a critique of a recently approved merger," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(15), pages 2023-2036, October.
    13. Braid, Ralph M., 2001. "Cost-reducing horizontal mergers that leave prices unchanged in models of spatial competition," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 421-427, June.
    14. Ralph Siebert, 2017. "Heterogeneous Merger Impacts on Competitive Outcomes," CESifo Working Paper Series 6607, CESifo.
    15. Kwang-Soo Cheong, "undated". "Mergers and Dynamic Oligopoly," Computing in Economics and Finance 1997 126, Society for Computational Economics.
    16. Ralph B. Siebert, 2022. "What Determines Heterogeneous Merger Effects on Competitive Outcomes?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(1), pages 217-256, March.
    17. Kai Hüschelrath & Kathrin Müller, 2015. "Market Power, Efficiencies, and Entry Evidence from an Airline Merger," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(4), pages 239-255, June.
    18. Avdasheva, Svetlana & Tsytsulina, Dina, 2015. "The effects of M&As in highly concentrated domestic vis-à-vis export markets: By the example of Russian metal industries," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 368-382.
    19. Oscar De la garza & Daniel Flores, 2015. "Equivalent tests for mergers in homogeneous goods industries," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(2), pages 1379-1382.
    20. Berardino Cesi & Walter Ferrarese, 2015. "Insider's Dilemma: a General Solution in a Repeated Game," CEIS Research Paper 350, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 14 Jul 2015.

    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:59:y:2021:i:4:d:10.1007_s11151-021-09845-8. 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.