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