Theoretical foundations of market power analysis in merger regulation

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24530057
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Social law
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: KAWAHAMA NOBORU 京都大学, 法学(政治学)研究科(研究院), 教授 (60204749)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 企業結合 / 市場支配力 / ユニラテラル効果 / 競争の実質的制限 / 市場画定 / 支配企業

Outline of Final Research Achievements

JFTC 2004 Merger Guidelines introduced unilateral effects analysis . Unilateral merger effects analysis are divided into two parts,(1)homogeneous product markets and (2) differentiated product markets. Commentators usually think that unilateral effects arise in one-shot oligopoly games with Nash equilibria. In the case of homogenous product market ,they refer to Cournot competition model. In the case of differentiated product market ,they refer to Bertrand competition model. But we found that competition authorities seem to use usually dominant-fringe model in homogeneous product markets and rarely use Cournot competition model. In the case of differentiated product markets, not all cases are Bertrand competition model. Some cases correspond to Cournot competition or capacity constrain model and other cases correspond to auction model . Merger investigation is fact-specific process . We must make a choice among several models on the basis of reasonably available data.

Free Research Field

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