IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/4437.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Capacity constraints and irreversible investments: defending against collective dominance in UPM Kymmene/Norske Skog/Haindl

Author

Listed:
  • Kühn, Kai-Uwe
  • Van Reenen, John

Abstract

Scrutiny of potential mergers by the European Commission often focuses on unilateral effects or single firm dominance. But some cases have involved concerns over coordinated effects: the concern that the merger could increase the likelihood of consumer harm through tacit collusion by the reduced number of firms in the industry (this is known as collective dominance). The economic and legal issues are far less certain in these cases and a particular challenge is how to bring empirical evidence to bear on the decision. In this chapter we examine a case in newsprint and magazine paper - UPM Kymmene/Norske Skog/Haindl . Here, coordinated effects were at the centre of the Commission’s concerns. We discuss how collusion theory and evidence were used to help clear the merger without remedies in the final Decision.

Suggested Citation

  • Kühn, Kai-Uwe & Van Reenen, John, 2008. "Capacity constraints and irreversible investments: defending against collective dominance in UPM Kymmene/Norske Skog/Haindl," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4437, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:4437
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/4437/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Osborne, Martin J & Pitchik, Carolyn, 1987. "Cartels, Profits and Excess Capacity," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 28(2), pages 413-428, June.
    2. Dixit, Avinash, 1980. "The Role of Investment in Entry-Deterrence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 90(357), pages 95-106, March.
    3. Chaim Fershtman & Eitan Muller, 1986. "Capital Investments and Price Agreements in Semicollusive Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(2), pages 214-226, Summer.
    4. Dan Kovenock & Raymond Deneckere & Tom Faith & Beth Allen, 2000. "Capacity precommitment as a barrier to entry: A Bertrand-Edgeworth approach," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 15(3), pages 501-530.
    5. Maura P. Doyle & Christopher M. Snyder, 1999. "Information Sharing and Competition in the Motor Vehicle Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(6), pages 1326-1364, December.
    6. Nick Bloom & Stephen Bond & John Van Reenen, 2007. "Uncertainty and Investment Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 391-415.
    7. Laurits Rolf Christensen & Richard E. Caves, 1997. "Cheap Talk and Investment Rivalry in the Pulp and Paper Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 47-73, March.
    8. Compte, Olivier & Jenny, Frederic & Rey, Patrick, 2002. "Capacity constraints, mergers and collusion," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-29, January.
    9. Steen, Frode & Sorgard, Lars, 1999. "Semicollusion in the Norwegian cement market," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(9), pages 1775-1796, October.
    10. Davidson, Carl & Deneckere, Raymond J, 1990. "Excess Capacity and Collusion," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 31(3), pages 521-541, August.
    11. Avinash Dixit, 1991. "Analytical Approximations in Models of Hysteresis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(1), pages 141-151.
    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. Vettas, Nikolaos & Biglaiser, Gary, 2004. "Dynamic Price Competition with Capacity Constraints and Strategic Buyers," CEPR Discussion Papers 4315, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Sherif Nasser & Danko Turcic, 2016. "To Commit or Not to Commit: Revisiting Quantity vs. Price Competition in a Differentiated Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(6), pages 1719-1733, June.
    3. David Besanko & Ulrich Doraszelski & Lauren Xiaoyuan Lu & Mark Satterthwaite, 2010. "Lumpy Capacity Investment and Disinvestment Dynamics," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 58(4-part-2), pages 1178-1193, August.
    4. Aniruddha Bagchi & Arijit Mukherjee, 2011. "Commitment and excess capacity with licensing: an old debate with a new look," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 103(2), pages 133-147, June.
    5. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock, 2011. "Endogenous rationing, price dispersion and collusion in capacity constrained supergames," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 47(1), pages 29-74, May.
    6. Johannes Paha, 2017. "The Value of Collusion with Endogenous Capacity and Demand Uncertainty," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(3), pages 623-653, September.
    7. Steen, Frode & Sorgard, Lars, 1999. "Semicollusion in the Norwegian cement market," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(9), pages 1775-1796, October.
    8. Tay-Cheng Ma, 2005. "Strategic investment and excess capacity: A study of the Taiwanese flour industry," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 8, pages 153-170, May.
    9. Bergman, Mats A., 1998. "Endogenous Timing of Investments Yields Modified Stackelberg Outcomes," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 272, Stockholm School of Economics.
    10. Vivek Ghosal, 2010. "Quantifying The Role Played By Sunk Capital Costs In Real‐Options Models," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 57(3), pages 343-358, July.
    11. Ulrich Doraszelski & Mark Satterthwaite & Lauren Xiaoyuan Lu & David Besanko, 2009. "Lumpy Capacity Investment and Disinvestment Dynamics," 2009 Meeting Papers 106, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Anderson, E.J. & Cau, T.D.H., 2011. "Implicit collusion and individual market power in electricity markets," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 211(2), pages 403-414, June.
    13. Besanko, David & Doraszelski, Ulrich & Satterthwaite, Mark & Lu, Lauren Xiaoyuan, 2008. "Lumpy Capacity Investment and Disinvestment Dynamics," CEPR Discussion Papers 6788, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Switgard Feuerstein, 2005. "Collusion in Industrial Economics—A Survey," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 163-198, December.
    15. Joseph E. Harrington, Jr, 2005. "Detecting Cartels," Economics Working Paper Archive 526, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    16. Symeonidis, George, 2001. "Price Competition, Innovation and Profitability: Theory and UK Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 2816, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. de Frutos, María-Ángeles & Fabra, Natalia, 2011. "Endogenous capacities and price competition: The role of demand uncertainty," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 399-411, July.
    18. Marie-Laure Cabon-Dhersin & Nicolas Drouhin, 2020. "A general model of price competition with soft capacity constraints," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 70(1), pages 95-120, July.
    19. Marcel Canoy & Patrick Rey & Eric van Damme, 2004. "Dominance and Monopolization," Chapters, in: Manfred Neumann & Jürgen Weigand (ed.), The International Handbook of Competition, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Jeanine Miklós-Thal, 2011. "Optimal collusion under cost asymmetry," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 46(1), pages 99-125, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    coordinated effects; joint dominance; irreversible investment; capacity constraints;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L73 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Primary Products and Construction - - - Forest Products
    • L4 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

    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:ehl:lserod:4437. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    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.