Merger Simulations of Unilateral Effects: What Can We Learn from the UK Brewing Industry?

Margaret Slade ()

The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics

Abstract: I discuss the use of simulation techniques to evaluate unilateral effects of horizontal mergers and the pitfalls that one can encounter when using them. Simple econometric models are desirable because they can be implemented in a short period of time and can be understood by non experts. Unfortunately, their predictions are often misleading. Complex models are more reliable but they require more time to implement and are less transparent. The use of merger simulations and the sensitivity of predictions to modeling choices is illustrated with an application to mergers in the UK brewing industry. There have been a number of brewing mergers that have changed the structure of the UK market, as well as proposed but unconsummated mergers that would have had even more profound effects. I assess two of them: the successful merger between Scottish&Newcastle and Courage and the proposed merger between Bass and Carlsberg–Tetley.

Keywords: Unilateral effects; horizontal merger simulations; UK brewing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L13 L41 L66 L81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2006
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cmp, nep-com, nep-cse and nep-ind
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/w ... s/2006/twerp_767.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: Merger Simulations of Unilateral Effects: What Can We Learn from the UK Brewing Industry? (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wrk:warwec:767

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Margaret Nash ().