Merged firms are typically rather complex organizations. Accordingly, merger has a more profound effect on the structure of a market than simply reducing the number of competitors. We show that this may render horizontal mergers profitable and welfare-improving even if costs are linear. The...

The seminal paper by Salant, Switzer and Reynolds (1983) showed that merger in a standard Cournot framework with linear demand and linear costs is not profitable unless a large majority of the firms are involved in the merger. However, many strategic aspects matter for firm competition such as...

If firms compete in all-pay auctions with complete information, silent shareholdings introduce asymmetric externalities into the all-pay auction framework. If the strongest firm owns a large share in the second strongest firm, this may make the strongest firm abstain from bidding. As a...

If firms compete in all-pay auctions with complete information, silent shareholdings introduce asymmetric externalities into the allpay auction framework. If the strongest firm owns a large share in the second strongest firm, this may make the strongest firm abstain from bidding. As a...

Competition in some product markets takes the form of a contest. If some firms cooperate in such markets, they must decide how to allocate effort on each of their products and whether to reduce the number of their products in the competition. We show how this decision depends on the convexity...

In this note we consider the preferences of a profit maximizing firm for international ownership in a world in which firms compete in an international Cournot oligopoly, and in which countries use strategic trade policy. We find that firms prefer national ownership and show that full...

We study the profitability incentives of merger and the endogenous industry structure in a strategic trade policy environment. Merger changes the strategic trade policy equlilibrium. We show that merger can be profitable and welfare enhancing here, even though it would not be profitable in a...

Competition in some markets is a contest. This paper studies the merger incentives in such markets. Merger can be profitable. The profitability depends on the post-merger contest structure, the discriminatory power of the contest and on the number of contestants. -- contests ; merger

Wages for the vast majority of workers have stagnated since the 1980s while productivity has grown. We investigate two coexisting explanations based on rising market power: 1. Monopsony, where dominant firms exploit the limited mobility of their own workers to pay lower wages; and 2. Monopoly,...