Mergers with Differentiated Products: Where Do We Stand?

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the 2010 U.S. Horizontal Merger Guidelines, this article provides an overview of the state of economic analysis of unilateral effects in mergers with differentiated products. Drawing on our experience with merger enforcement in Europe, we discuss both static and dynamic competition, with a special emphasis on the calibration of competitive effects. We also discuss the role of market shares and structural presumptions in differentiated product markets.

You Say You Want an Antitrust Revolution? The Paradox of Modern Merger Control

Over the past twenty years, merger control has made what appear to be substantial advances in concepts and methodology, claiming the mantle of a “revolution.” This essay observes, however, that over this very same time period, merger control has in fact weakened and concentration risen throughout the economy. It reexamines two of the most heralded new methodologies—market definition and unilateral effects. It shows ways in which these have had the paradoxical effect of actually weakening merger control rather than strengthening it.

Innovation Considerations in Horizontal Merger Control

This paper focuses on the assessment of mergers and in particular on unilateral effects analysis where innovation plays an important role. The paper discusses the economic theories behind innovation, how we move from the traditional product-by-product market definition to pipeline competition and innovation competition and the concept of innovation space. The paper provides a structural analysis of unilateral effects in such markets analyzing how competition authorities should assess a transaction where the main theory of harm is based on innovation considerations.

DOES MERGER POLICY CONVERGE AFTER THE 2004 EUROPEAN UNION REFORM?

ABSTRACT The European Union (EU) formally changed its merger policy in 2004, moving from a dominance standard to one based on a significant impediment of effective competition, which appears more closely aligned with the U.S. substantial lessening of competition standard. We use data from both before and after this reform to explore whether EU policy has converged toward the U.S. standard. We start by identifying changes in the EU regime and detect a softer EU policy for unilateral effects. We model the outcomes of EU and U.S. investigations with logit models and use their predictions in decompositions and other exercises to show policy convergence for unilateral effects cases.

INFLUENCING PARAMETERS OF THE LIFE CYCLE COST-ENERGY RELATIONSHIP OF BUILDINGS

Buildings contribute around 45% of the world's energy consumption. Reducing energy demand in buildings therefore plays a vital role in addressing the depletion of energy resources and associated environmental issues. Previous research explored the optimisations of the costs and energy consumption of buildings, but often overlooked the connections, tradeoffs and synergies between them. The aim of this paper is thus to develop a theoretical model of the influencing parameters of the life cycle cost-energy relationship (LCCER) of buildings using the Political, Economic, Socio-cultural, Technological, Environmental and Legal (PESTEL) analytical framework. This study was carried out through a critical literature review, model development and validation through case studies with four zero or nearly zero energy building projects carefully selected from the European Union and Australia. The developed model addresses the buildings' LCCER by identifying the key influencing parameters and explicating the mechanisms (namely, the simultaneous and unilateral effects) by which the identified parameters affect such relationship. The important influencing parameters were found to reside in two aspects: (1) internal project designs covering building characteristics, building structure and function, and construction process, and (2) external environments covering climate, economic condition, occupant behaviour, policy and regulation, and buildings' lifespan focused in the studies. Various statistical correlations were found to exist between the costs and energy consumption of the studied cases. It is summarised that these correlations may be attributable to the synergy between the simultaneous and unilateral effects of the identified parameters. The developed model contributes a systemic approach to examining the building's life cycle economics and energy in a comparative manner.