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In
horizontal mergers, concentration is often measured with the
Hirschmann-Herfindahl Index (HHI). This index yields
the price-cost margins in Cournot competition. In many
modern merger cases, both buyers and sellers have market
power, and indeed, the buyers and sellers may be the same
set of firms. In such cases, the HHI is inapplicable.
Hendricks and McAfee develop an alternative theory that has
similar data requirements as the HHI, applies to
intermediate good industries with arbitrary numbers of firms
on both sides, and specializes to the HHI when buyers have
no market power. The more inelastic is the downstream
demand, the more captive production and consumption (not
traded in the intermediate market) affects price-cost
margins. The Hendricks-McAfee Vertical Merger
Simulator models this theory. |