TY - JOUR
T1 - The price effects of a large merger of manufacturers
T2 - A case study of maytag-whirlpool
AU - Ashenfelter, Orley C.
AU - Hosken, Daniel S.
AU - Weinberg, Matthew C.
PY - 2013/2
Y1 - 2013/2
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
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U2 - 10.1257/pol.5.1.239
DO - 10.1257/pol.5.1.239
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84873500787
SN - 1945-7731
VL - 5
SP - 239
EP - 261
JO - American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
JF - American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
IS - 1
ER -