Binglin Gong Fudan University
Industrial Organization
Lecture 5
Concentration, Mergers,
and Entry Barriers
Questions to Answer
1. Why do firms in some industries make pure profits?
2. When oligopolies make pure profits, how come entry
of new firms does not always occur, thereby eliminating
all pure profits?
3. What can explain mergers among firms in a given
industry?
Questions to Answer (Cont.)
4. What is and what should be the regulators' attitudes
towards concentrated industries? More precisely,
(a) Should the regulator limit and control mergers
among firms in the same industry?
(b) Even if mergers do not occur, should the regulator
attempt to control the degree of concentration in
industries?
Outline of This Lecture
• Discusses and defines methods for measuring
the degree of concentration in an industry.
• Analyzes merger activities among firms and
how those activities affect the industry's level
of concentration.
• Explain why entry does not always occur
despite the fact that existing firms in the
industry make strictly positive profits—entry
barriers & entry deterrence.
Concentration Measures
• The most concentrated industry has a monopoly
market structure.
• When the number of firms is greater than one, there
are two factors that influence concentration:
(a) the number of firms in the industry, and
(b) the distribution of output among the firms in the
industry.
• Thus, a measure of concentration should be sensitive
to both the distribution of the industry's output across
firms as well as the number of firms in the industry.
Concentration Measures
• When the market is splitted more evenly among more
firms, the concentration level is lower.
• Assume there are N firms in an industry.
Use i as the index for firms, i=1,…, N.
qi is the output of firm i.
Q is the total output in this industry.
• Firm’s percentage share in industry’s output =
Si=100(qi/Q)
Concentration Measures
• We can rank them from high to low. S(i) is the ith
highest share.
• Two measures of concentration
– Four firm concentration ratio
– The Herfindahl-Hirshman index
Example
• The Herfindahl-Hirshman index contains more
information and is more accurate. It is more
frequently used.
Mergers
• The terms mergers, takeovers, acquisitions, and
integration describe a situation where independently
owned firms join under the same ownership.
• We will use the term merger to refer to any type of
joining ownership and disregard the question of
whether the merger is initiated by both firms, or
whether one firm was taken over by another. Instead,
we investigate the gains and incentives to merge and
the consequences of mergers for the subsequent
performance and productivity of the firms involved,
for consumers' welfare, and for social welfare.
Types of Mergers
• Horizontal: merger between two competitors:
Goods are substitutes.
• Vertical: merger between a firm producing an
intermediate good (or a factor of production)
and a firm producing the final good that uses
this intermediate good.
• Conglomerate: merger between firms
producing less related products.
Conglomerate Merger
• Product extension: The acquiring and acquired
firms are functionally related in production or
distribution.
• Market extension: The firms produce the same
products but sell them in different geographic
markets.
• Other conglomerate: The firms are essentially
unrelated in the products they produce and
distribute.
Merger Waves
Period Name Facet [31]
1893–1904 First Wave Horizontal mergers
1919–1929 Second Wave Vertical mergers
1955–1970 Third Wave Diversified conglomerate
mergers
1974–1989 Fourth Wave
Co-generic mergers;
Hostile takeovers;
Corporate Raiding
1993–2000 Fifth Wave Cross-border mergers,
mega-mergers
2003–2008 Sixth Wave
Globalisation,
Shareholder Activism,
Private Equity, LBO
2014- Seventh Wave
Mergers in The Real World
• Acquisitions: Motorola Mobility, Waze, Deja
News (Google Groups), Dodgeball (Google
Latitude), JotSpot (Google Sites),
GrandCentral (Google Voice), Next New
Networks (YouTube Next Lab and Audience
Development Group).
• Spinnoffs: Frommers, SketchUp, Google
Radio Automation.
Why So Many Mergers in The Real
World? Possible Answers:
• Economies of scale: both in production and in
things like R&D.
• Economies of scope: synergies between the
two companies. Defensive mergers: to deal
with contracting markets, excess capacity.
• Decrease competition: these are the mergers
that antitrust is worried about.
How Successful Are Mergers?
• Studies of past merger waves have shown that two of
every three merger deals have not worked.
• Why?
• Real world problems like.
1. Linking distribution systems is often difficult.
2. Information systems often very difficult to mesh
together.
3. Clash of corporate cultures.
The “Merger Paradox”
The “Merger Paradox”
The “Merger Paradox”
The “Merger Paradox”
Horizontal Merger of
Heterogeneous Firms
Proposition 8.1
• Under a Cournot market structure, a merger
among firms leading to an increase in
concentration does not necessarily imply an
overall welfare reduction.
• The intuition behind Proposition 8.1 is that
when firms have different production costs,
there exists a tradeoff between production
efficiency and the degree of monopolization.
Merged Firm as A Stackelberg
Leader
Merged Firm as A Stackelberg
Leader • Always more profitable to merge if you can act
as a Stackelberg leader.
• Merger decreases profits of non-merging firms
are long as there are four or more firms in the
industry originally.
• In this model, total output will increase.
• So now we have a new paradox: Why would
antitrust officials want to stop this type of
merger?
Horizontal Mergers with Product
Differentiation • Spatial model of product differentiation
• Possible benefits of merger:
Coordinate prices: price of one firm affects the
demand for the other firm.
• Also can coordinate "location" (product
design).
• Start with a circle model this time, not a linear
model.
Horizontal Mergers with Product
Differentiation • Circle model similar to linear model, except there is no "end“
problem.
• Consumers evenly spaced around the circle.
• Each has a value of s and a cost of transport of t.
• All firms have the same costs. F is fixed cost and c is constant
marginal cost.
• Each firm sets price.
• Consumers pay p + t(distance traveled)
• With symmetric firms, they locate 1/n away from each other,
all set the same price.
• As long as s is sufficiently high, every consumer on the circle
will buy.
Horizontal Mergers with Product
Differentiation • P* = t(length of circle)/n
• At this price, all consumers buy.
• Merger has no effect if the two firms aren't neighbors.
• Why? no competition between the firms that merge,
so no way to decrease competition.
• If neighboring firms merge, can lessen competition.
Have "captive consumers" over which they have
more market power and can increase profits by
raising price.
Horizontal Mergers with Product
Differentiation • Merger also benefits the other firms in the market –
allows them to raise price too.
• After the merger, combined firms may also change
their product lines -- get closer to their neighbors.
• In this case, if there are efficiencies, they will be due
to economies of scope.
Evaluating Mergers
• None of the models presented assume any cost
savings – only reducing competition.
• We need a way to evaluate mergers that
considers both the benefits of any cost savings
as well as the affects of decreased competition.
1992 Merger Guidelines
• Define relevant product and geographic market.
• Measure concentration pre- & post- merger with HHI.
If merger raises HHI by 100 points and post-merger
HHI is > 1000, investigate further.
• Assess ease of entry into market.
• Assess likely competitive effects of merger.
• Assess any significant efficiencies that would result
from the merger.
Vertical Merger
• A vertical merger is defined as a merger
between a supplier (producer) of an
intermediate good and a producer of a final
good who uses this intermediate good as a
factor of production. The common terminology
used to describe these firms is to call the
intermediate-good suppliers as upstream firms,
and the final-good producers as downstream
firms.
Vertical Merger
Vertical Merger
Vertical Merger
Vertical Merger
Proposition 8.2
• A merger between an upstream and a downstream
firm increases the output level of the merged firm and
reduces the output level of the downstream firm that
does not merge.
• Proposition 8.2 is rather intuitive. The downstream
firm that does not merge faces an increase in its input
cost resulting from having to buy its input from a
single monopoly firm B. Hence, the increase in firm
2's production cost and the reduction in firm 1's
production cost would increase the output of firm 1
and reduce the output of firm 2.
Proposition 8.3
1. The combined profit of the merging upstream and
downstream firms increase after they merge.
2. A merger between the upstream and the downstream
firms will not foreclose the market of the disjoint
downstream firm but will only reduce its profit.
• It is often argued that vertical mergers lead to a
foreclosure of the disjoint downstream firms (firm B
or firm 1 or both go out of business). This cannot
happen in the present model since the upstream firm
B will reduce the input price to prevent firm 2 from
leaving the market (firm B sells only to firm 2 after
the merger).
Horizontal Merger among Firms
Producing Complementary Products
Horizontal Merger among Firms
Producing Complementary Products
Horizontal Merger among Firms
Producing Complementary Products
Proposition 8.4
Entry Barriers
• Why do we frequently observe that firms do
not enter an industry despite the fact that the
existing firms in the industry make above
normal profits?
• Barriers to entry are considered an important
structural characteristic of an industry.
Entry Barriers
• Absolute cost advantages of incumbent firms
• Economies of scale
• Product-differentiation advantages of incumbent firms, such as
reputation and goodwill.
• Politicians and all levels of governments may explicitly or
implicitly support the existing firms (and the existing firms
may in return support and contribute to the campaigns of
politicians).
• Learning experience possessed by the existing firms
• Consumers' loyalty to brands already consumed
• Availability of financing (banks are less eager to lend to new
investors)
Sunk Costs Generate Entry Barriers
• Sunk costs: costs that cannot be reversed or for which
the investment associated with paying them cannot be
converted to other causes, or resold in order to
recapture part of the investment cost.
• Examples: legal fees and taxes that an entering firm
must bear prior to the actual entry, market surveys
(almost always mandated by the investors),
advertising costs, and expenditures on
nontransportable, nonconvertible plant and
equipment, such as the site preparation work for any
plant.
Sunk Costs Generate Entry Barriers
• In a market for a homogeneous product, the existence
of even small sunk costs can serve as an entry barrier
so that entry will not occur even if the incumbent
continues to make a monopoly profit.
Proposition 8.5
• For any level of sunk entry cost satisfying
, , there exists a unique subgame perfect
equilibrium where firm A is a monopoly earning
a and firm B stays out.
• That is, in a SPE, the entrant foresees that after entry
occurs (the second stage of the game), the incumbent
will switch from being a monopoly to being in an
aggressive price competition and leading the
marginal-cost pricing. Hence, in the first stage the
potential entrant will choose not to enter since staying
out yields zero profit.
• Proposition 8.5 is rather disturbing because it means
that entry will never occur as long as there are some
(even infinitesimal) sunk costs associated with entry.
However, Proposition 8.5 applies only to
homogeneous products. In fact, under these
circumstances, it is likely that the entrant will engage
itself in further investments (higher sunk costs) in
order to develop a differentiated brand, in which case
price competition need not yield zero or negative
profits.
• However, Proposition 8.5 makes a point by stating
that even small sunk cost can create all the conditions
for entry barriers. In fact, the incumbent does not
need to do anything to deter this entry and simply
continues producing the monopoly output level.
• Proposition 8.5 highlights the role ex-post
competition plays in creating entry barriers. What
generates the entry barriers even for negligible sunk
cost is the intensity of the postentry price
competition.
If A Firm Could Receive An Amount
of Ø>0 upon Exit
Proposition 8.6
• There exists a unique subgame perfect equilibrium for
the game described in Figure 8.3, where firm B enters
and firm A (incumbent) exits the industry.
• Proposition 8.6 states that the market for this product
will remain dominated by a monopoly market
structure despite the fact that entry (and exit) occur.
One monopoly replaces another monopoly. Hence,
from the consumers' point of view, this particular
market will be regarded as one that has substantial
entry barriers.
Entry Deterrence
• We assume that initially there is one firm, called the
incumbent or the established firm, that is a monopoly
in a certain market.
• In the second stage, we assume that another firm,
called the potential entrant is entering the market if
entry results in above normal profit.
Entry Deterrence
• Blockaded entry: The incumbent is not threatened by
entry; no firm would find it profitable to enter, even if
the incumbent produces the monopoly output level.
• Deterred entry: The incumbent modifies its behavior
(say, by lowering price or expanding capacity) in
order to deter entry; if prices are lowered, then we say
that the incumbent exercises limit pricing.
• Accommodated entry: Entry occurs, and the
incumbent firm modifies its action to take into
account of entry that occurs.
Entry Deterrence
Potential
Rival
Incumbent
Incumbent
3000
Rival 0
8-52
Incumbent
1100
Rival 900
Incumbent
600
Rival -200
Equilibrium
Are Threats Effective?
• For the potential entrant, the optimal strategy is to
enter. If the competitor enters the market, warfare
strategy payoff is lower than accommodation
strategy payoff for the incumbent.
• But this outcome is not desired by the incumbent.
So in order to deter entry, the incumbent can carry
out the threat of warfare.
• Questions: Can such a threat deter entry? Why?
How to understand the rationality of competitors?
8-53
Commitments
• Commitment——An action taken by a
player which make its threat to become
credible.
• An example: IBM declared a very low price
after three years when it brought its new PC
into the market.
• Questions: What’s the effect of IBM’s
action? Why was this action feasible? 8-54
Credibility of Commitment
• How can the incumbent’s threat become
credible in the game of entry deterrence?
• One commitment is to install a additional
production capacity, which is excrescent
when the potential entrant enter the market
and is a strong weapon to lower the price
when entry happens 8-55
Payoffs after an 800 Investment
Potential
Rival
Incumbent
Incumbent
2200
Rival 0
8-56
Incumbent
300
Rival 900
Incumbent
600
Rival -200
Equilibrium
Some Specific Strategies
• “Promising the lowest price” strategy
• “We promise that the prices of what we sell are
the lowest in the city. If customers who bought
the goods in our shop can find lower price for
the same goods during one month, in addition to
repaying the margin, we will further compensate
10% of the sum. ”
• Questions: What’s the effect of the strategy? If
you are the boss of another shop, how can you
make the price? 8-57
Merger vs. Predation
• Sometimes merger can be more profitable than
predation, sometimes not.
• However, – merger may not be allowed by the authorities
• monopoly power – what if there are additional potential entrants?
• may enter purely in the hope of being bought out
• Main point remains: threat of predation has to be
credible if it is to work