2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines
Read the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines and answer the following questions accordingly.
(1) How to define the relevant market to conduct the merger analysis? Explain briefly what is the Hypothetical Monopolist Test. You should discuss what the market definition is and how to include market participants of a relevant market.
(2) Explain what are the possible reasons to make a market vulnerable to Coordinated Conduct.
(3) Explain how the merger guidelines deal with failing firms. Do you agree or disagree with how the guidelines handle a failing firm?
(4) Suppose one asks consumers the following: what products would you substitute to if price of product A rise by 5%? Would all those substitute products constitute a market under the definition of market in the Guidelines? Explain.
(5) Is there any economic reasoning based on oligopoly theory distinguishing unilateral conduct from coordinated conduct? Explain. What is the role of market definition when there is unilateral conduct?
(6) Explain how partial acquisitions could induce anticompetitive merger effects.
(7) What are the conditions for entry of other firms to lessen anticompetitive merger effects?