Seminar: Gergely Csorba, Hungarian Competition Authority, Budapest, Hungary.

Titel:

Separating the ex post effects of mergers: an analysis of structural changes on the Hungarian retail gasoline market.

Abstract:

This paper gives an ex post evaluation of two almost simultaneous mergers in the

Hungarian retail gasoline market. By analyzing a detailed panel of station-level

prices and using the fact that the two mergers affected regional markets

differently, we are able to separate the price effects arising from the two mergers,

and also differentiate between the price effects on buyer / acquired stations and on

their direct competitors. We show that one merger was neutral and the other

resulted in price changes smaller than 1%. For both mergers, we also find that the

impact on merging parties' pricing was higher than on competitors' pricing, and

the merger with larger overlaps in parties' local markets lead to (weakly) larger

price increases