An Aggregative Games Approach to Merger Analysis in Multiproduct-Firm Oligopoly

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Nocke, Volker; Schutz, Nicolas
• 署名单位: University of Mannheim
• 刊物名称: RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0741-6261
• DOI: 10.1111/1756-2171.12500
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 233-250
• 关键词: welfare enhancing mergers; horizontal mergers; robust test; models; performance; simulation; economies; sellers; DEFENSE

摘要

Using an aggregative games approach, we analyze horizontal mergers in a model of multiproduct-firm price competition with CES and logit demand, allowing for arbitrary firm and product heterogeneity. We provide conditions under which a merger raises consumer surplus, and establish the dynamic optimality of a myopic, consumer-surplus-based merger approval policy. We also study the aggregate surplus and external effects of a merger. Finally, we show that the market power effect of a merger, defined as the welfare effect in the absence of merger-specific synergies, can be approximated by the induced, naively computed change in the Herfindahl index.