The Price Effects of a Large Merger of Manufacturers: A Case Study of Maytag-Whirlpool

Orley Ashenfelter, Daniel S. Hosken and Matthew Weinberg ()

No 17476, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Many experts speculate that U.S. 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 fell.

JEL-codes: K2 K21 L11 L4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-com, nep-hme, nep-law and nep-reg
Note: IO LE
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Published as Orley C. Ashenfelter & Daniel S. Hosken & Matthew C. Weinberg, 2013. "The Price Effects of a Large Merger of Manufacturers: A Case Study of Maytag-Whirlpool," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 239-61, February.

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Journal Article: The Price Effects of a Large Merger of Manufacturers: A Case Study of Maytag-Whirlpool (2013)
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