Horizontal Merger Analysis in Retail Markets

58 Pages Posted: 21 Jan 2015

See all articles by Daniel S. Hosken

Daniel S. Hosken

Government of the United States of America - Federal Trade Commission

Steven Tenn

Charles River Associates

Date Written: January 19, 2015

Abstract

In this essay, we describe antitrust analysis of horizontal mergers in U.S. retail markets. We begin by providing a brief overview of the economic and legal framework governing horizontal merger policy, and highlight key issues in analyzing retail mergers. Next, we discuss the changing legal treatment of retailing mergers by providing a description of four major merger challenges brought by U.S. antitrust authorities over the last 50 years. We then provide a detailed discussion of the economic tools used to analyze retailing mergers. We start by presenting a frequently used model of retail competition to illustrate how retail mergers can create or enhance market power. We then describe a variety of structural and reduced form empirical techniques that can be used to quantify competition between merging retailers and, in some cases, to forecast merger price effects.

Keywords: retailing, horizontal mergers, antitrust

JEL Classification: K21, L11, L40, L81

Suggested Citation

Hosken, Daniel S. and Tenn, Steven, Horizontal Merger Analysis in Retail Markets (January 19, 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2552548 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2552548

Daniel S. Hosken

Government of the United States of America - Federal Trade Commission ( email )

600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20580
United States

Steven Tenn (Contact Author)

Charles River Associates ( email )

1201 F Street, NW, Suite 700
Washington, DC 20004-1229
United States
202-662-3806 (Phone)
202-662-3910 (Fax)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
829
Abstract Views
3,221
Rank
54,546
PlumX Metrics