Work

Welfare‐Increasing Monopolization*

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: The conditions for monopolization to be good for social welfare are examined. Social welfare can be higher when a monopoly sells to a monopoly, with double margins, than when a competitive industry sells to a downstream Cournot oligopoly with differing efficiency levels. This requires inverse demand to be sufficiently concave, and cannot hold when demand is convex. When there are no vertical issues conditions are found for elimination of an inefficient firm to raise welfare, building on Lahiri and Ono (1988). In general greater demand concavity increases the relative importance of the benefit of redistributing output to the efficient firm.

Source: Journal of Industrial Economics

DOI: 10.1111/joie.12405

Author: Simon Cowan

Institution: University of Oxford

Language: English

Topic: Merger and Competition Analysis

Subfield: Economics and Econometrics

Field: Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Decent work and economic growth

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,190