IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sef/csefwp/581.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the Risk of Using a Firm-Level Approach to Identify Relevant Markets

Author

Listed:

Abstract

In a recent influential paper Coate et al. (2020) have criticized the standard firm-level approach to market definition in merger review. They argue why a market-level approach to critical loss is more appropriate than a firm-level critical loss analysis. Their conclusion is that under certain plausible demand scenarios - i.e., non-linearity of demand functions - a diversion-based firm-level analysis could easily reach the wrong answer on market definition. We extend their analysis by showing that in standard environments used by the most recent theoretical and empirical academic work on merger analysis (namely CES and logit demand functions), a firm level approach actually leads to an excessively narrow market definition as opposed to a market-level approach, thereby increasing the risk of type I errors.

Suggested Citation

  • Timo Autio & Jorge Padilla & Salvatore Piccolo & Pekka Sääskilahti & Lotta Väänänen, 2020. "On the Risk of Using a Firm-Level Approach to Identify Relevant Markets," CSEF Working Papers 581, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:581
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.csef.it/WP/wp581.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thisse, Jacques-François & Fujita, Masahisa, 2002. "Agglomeration and Market Interaction," CEPR Discussion Papers 3362, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Elhanan Helpman & Paul Krugman, 1987. "Market Structure and Foreign Trade: Increasing Returns, Imperfect Competition, and the International Economy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026258087x, April.
    3. Masahisa Fujita & Paul Krugman & Anthony J. Venables, 2001. "The Spatial Economy: Cities, Regions, and International Trade," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262561476, April.
    4. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1995. "The Politics of Free-Trade Agreements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 667-690, September.
    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. Michael D. Whinston, 2008. "Lectures on Antitrust Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262731878, April.
    7. Volker Nocke & Nicolas Schutz, 2018. "Multiproduct‐Firm Oligopoly: An Aggregative Games Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(2), pages 523-557, March.
    8. Simon P. Anderson & Nisvan Erkal & Daniel Piccinin, 2020. "Aggregative games and oligopoly theory: short‐run and long‐run analysis," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(2), pages 470-495, June.
    9. Reiss, Peter C. & Wolak, Frank A., 2007. "Structural Econometric Modeling: Rationales and Examples from Industrial Organization," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 64, Elsevier.
    10. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    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. Coate, Malcolm B. & Ulrick, Shawn W. & Yun, John M., 2021. "Tailoring critical loss to the competitive process," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).

    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. Simon P. Anderson & Nisvan Erkal & Daniel Piccinin, 2020. "Aggregative games and oligopoly theory: short‐run and long‐run analysis," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(2), pages 470-495, June.
    2. Simon P. Anderson, Nisvan Erkal and, 2009. "Aggregative Oligopoly Games with Entry," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1175, The University of Melbourne, revised 2013.
    3. Etro, Federico, 2023. "Platform competition with free entry of sellers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. Stephen J. Redding, 2010. "The Empirics Of New Economic Geography," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 297-311, February.
    5. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/6q707l4svn8k3bt630nhgdqgdu is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Shon M. Ferguson, 2015. "Endogenous Product Differentiation, Market Size and Prices," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 45-61, February.
    7. Felbermayr, Gabriel & Grossmann, Volker & Kohler, Wilhelm, 2012. "Migration, International Trade and Capital Formation: Cause or Effect?," IZA Discussion Papers 6975, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Joachim Jarreau & Sandra Poncet, 2009. "Export Sophistication and Economic Performance: Evidence from Chinese Provinces," Working Papers 2009-34, CEPII research center.
    9. Quang Vuong & Ayse Pehlivan, 2015. "Supply Function Competition and Exporters: Nonparametric Identification and Estimation of Productivity Distributions and Marginal Costs," 2015 Meeting Papers 1414, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Artis, Michael & Okubo, Toshihiro, 2008. "The Intranational Business Cycle: Evidence from Japan," CEPR Discussion Papers 6686, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Sato, Susumu, 2021. "Market shares and profits in two-sided markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    12. Andrew B. Bernard & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2007. "Comparative Advantage and Heterogeneous Firms," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(1), pages 31-66.
    13. Qichang Xie & Yingkun Yan & Xu Wang, 2023. "Assessing the role of foreign direct investment in environmental sustainability: a spatial semiparametric panel approach," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 1263-1295, April.
    14. Anderson, Simon P. & de Palma, André, 2024. "Economic distributions, primitive distributions, and demand recovery in monopolistic competition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    15. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer & John Ries, 2000. "On the Pervasiveness of Home Market Effects," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0862, Econometric Society.
    16. Vincent Rebeyrol & Julien Vauday, 2008. "Live or let die : intra-sectoral lobbying on entry," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne bla08036, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    17. Motta, Massimo & Tarantino, Emanuele, 2021. "The effect of horizontal mergers, when firms compete in prices and investments," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    18. Mogens Fosgerau & Julien Monardo & André de Palma, 2024. "The Inverse Product Differentiation Logit Model," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 329-370, November.
    19. Genakos, C. & Grey, F. & Ritz, R., 2020. "Generalized linear competition: From pass-through to policy," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2078, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    20. Meng, Ning & Milner, Chris & Song, Huasheng, 2020. "Antidumping and heterogeneous quality adjustment of multi-product firms: Evidence from Chinese exporters," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 147-161.
    21. ROCHELANDET, Fabrice & TAI, Silvio H.T., 2012. "Do privacy laws affect the location decisions of internet firms? evidence for privacy havens," MPRA Paper 37354, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Critical Loss Analysis; Firm- and Market-level approach; Mergers; Non-linear Demand.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • L4 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:sef:csefwp:581. 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: Dr. Maria Carannante (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cssalit.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.