Competitive aggressiveness is analyzed in a simple spatial competition model, where each one of two firms supplies two connected market segments, one captive the other contested. To begin with, firms are simply assumed to maximize profit subject to two constraints, one related to...

The welfare impact of a merger involves the market power offense and the efficiency defense. Salant et al. (1983) show that mergers among symmetric firms are unprofitable except for monopolization. We characterize the limit to this merger paradox in a simple linear Cournot oligopoly with...