Firms’ Markup, Cost, and Price Changes when Policymakers Permit Collusion: Does Antitrust Immunity Matter?

Philip Gayle () and Xin Xie

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Airlines wanting to cooperatively set prices for their international air travel service must apply to the relevant authorities for antitrust immunity (ATI). Whether consumers, on net, benefit from a grant of ATI to partner airlines has caused much public debate. This paper investigates the impact of granting ATI to oneworld alliance members on their price, markup, and various measures of cost. The evidence suggests that implementation of the oneworld alliance without ATI did not have a statistically significant impact on the markup of products offered by the members, and there is no evidence that the subsequent grant of ATI to various members resulted in higher markups on their products. We find evidence suggesting that the grant of ATI facilitated a decrease in partner carriers’ marginal and fixed costs. Furthermore, member carriers’ price did not increase (decreased) in markets where their services do (do not) overlap, implying that consumers, on net, benefit from the grant of ATI in terms of price changes.

Keywords: Airline Competition; Strategic Alliances; Antitrust Immunity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L13 L40 L93 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-11-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ind, nep-law and nep-tre
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Firms’ markup, cost, and price changes when policymakers permit collusion: Does antitrust immunity matter? (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:89914

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