American Economic Journal:
Economic Policy
ISSN 1945-7731 (Print) | ISSN 1945-774X (Online)
The Price Effects of a Large Merger of Manufacturers: A Case Study of Maytag-Whirlpool
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
vol. 5,
no. 1, February 2013
(pp. 239–61)
Abstract
Many experts speculate that US antitrust policy towards horizontal mergers has been too lenient. We estimate the price effects of Whirlpool's acquisition of Maytag to provide new evidence on this debate. We compare price changes in appliance markets most affected by the merger to markets where concentration changed much less or not at all. We estimate price increases for dishwashers and relatively large price increases for clothes dryers, but no price effects for refrigerators or clothes washers. The combined firm's market share fell across all four affected categories, and the number of distinct appliance products offered for sale fell. (JEL G34, K21, L11, L41, L68)Citation
Ashenfelter, Orley C., Daniel S. Hosken, and Matthew C. Weinberg. 2013. "The Price Effects of a Large Merger of Manufacturers: A Case Study of Maytag-Whirlpool." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 5 (1): 239–61. DOI: 10.1257/pol.5.1.239Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- G34 Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Voting; Proxy Contests; Corporate Governance
- K21 Antitrust Law
- L11 Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
- L41 Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
- L68 Appliances; Other Consumer Durables
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