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Search costs, demand-side economies, and the incentives to merge under Bertrand competition

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  • José L. Moraga-González
  • Vaiva Petrikaitė
Abstract
We study the incentives to merge in a Bertrand competition model where firms sell differentiated products and consumers search sequentially for satisfactory deals. In the pre-merger symmetric equilibrium, consumers visit firmsrandomly. However, after a merger, because insiders raise their prices more than the outsiders, consumers start searching for good deals at the non-merging stores, and only when they do not find a satisfactory product there they visit the merging firms. As search costs go up, consumer traffic from the non-merging firms to the merged ones decreases and eventually mergers become unprofitable. This new merger paradox can be overcome if the merged entity chooses to stock each of its stores with all the products of the constituent firms, which generates sizable search economies. We show that such demand-side economies can confer the merging firms a prominent position in the marketplace, in which case their price may even be lower than the price of the non-merging firms. In that situation, consumers start searching for a satisfactory good at the merged entity and the firms outside the merger lose out. When search economies are sufficiently large, a merger is beneficial for consumers too, and overall welfare increases.
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Suggested Citation

  • José L. Moraga-González & Vaiva Petrikaitė, 2013. "Search costs, demand-side economies, and the incentives to merge under Bertrand competition," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 44(3), pages 391-424, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:randje:v:44:y:2013:i:3:p:391-424
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    Cited by:

    1. Mark Armstrong, 2017. "Ordered Consumer Search," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(5), pages 989-1024.
    2. Marcel Preuss, 2023. "Search, learning, and tracking," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 54(1), pages 54-82, March.
    3. Brett Hollenbeck & Renato Zaterka Giroldo, 2022. "Winning Big: Scale and Success in Retail Entrepreneurship," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(2), pages 271-293, March.
    4. Parakhonyak, Alexei & Titova, Maria, 2018. "Shopping malls, platforms and consumer search," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 183-213.
    5. Bertin Martens & Luis Aguiar & Estrella Gomez Herrera & Frank Muller, 2018. "The digital transformation of news media and the rise of disinformation and fake news," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2018-02, Joint Research Centre.
    6. José Luis Moraga-González & Zsolt Sándor & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2017. "Prices and heterogeneous search costs," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 48(1), pages 125-146, March.
    7. Hui Song, 2017. "Ordered search with asymmetric product design," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 105-132, June.
    8. Andrew Rhodes & Jidong Zhou, 2019. "Consumer Search and Retail Market Structure," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 2607-2623, June.
    9. Grégory Jolivet & Hélène Turon, 2019. "Consumer Search Costs and Preferences on the Internet," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(3), pages 1258-1300.
    10. Makoto Hanazono & Noritaka Kudoh, 2024. "Prominence And Market Power: Asymmetric Oligopoly With Sequential Consumer Search," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 65(3), pages 1249-1281, August.
    11. Moraga-González, José-Luis & Sun, Yajie, 2022. "Product Quality and Consumer Search," CEPR Discussion Papers 14669, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. José L. Moraga-González & Yajie Sun, 2023. "Product Quality and Consumer Search," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 117-141, February.
    13. Estrella Gomez-Herrera & Bertin Martens & Frank Muller-Langer, 2017. "Trade, competition and welfare in global online labour markets: A "gig economy" case study," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2017-05, Joint Research Centre.
    14. Amedeo Piolatto, 2015. "Online booking and information: competition and welfare consequences of review aggregators," Working Papers 2015/11, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    15. Hong Zhu & Qi Zhu, 2016. "Mergers and acquisitions by Chinese firms: A review and comparison with other mergers and acquisitions research in the leading journals," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 1107-1149, December.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

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