Research On Efficiency Defence In Antitrust Review

Merger and acquisition can rapidly expand the business scale and enhance the competitiveness of enterprises.It can influence the enterprises’ income,but also the whole industry.Merger has two sides,on the one hand,it may restrict the competition,on the other hand,it can improve the efficiency of enterprises and promote economic development as well as social welfare. This paper mainly study on the influence of the horizontal and vertical merger on competition and welfare.Horizontal merger can generate economies of scale and costs savings,on the other hand,it will also produce or enhance its market power and reduce the number of competitors in the market.It can eliminate the double marginalization and improve the integration of resources allocation in the vertical merger,on the other hand,it may produce market foreclosure to exclude competitors.Therefore,the analysis of the positive and negative effects on the merger is controversial in the field of economics and antitrust judicial authority.Over the years,the views of antitrust policy have changed.Harvard School’s SCP structure is the main theory before 1970 s,which see efficiency as an offence;There are some criticism on Harvard School’s SCP theory in the middle of 1970,and produced a theory which see efficiency as the core opinion.In the view,if a merger can obtain greater efficiency,even can offset the potential anti-competitive effects of the merger,then the merger should be approved by considering the efficiency.The research object of the article is the competition effect of horizontal mergers,vertical merger and acquisition regulation,this is both economics and legal issue,the article adopts the interdisciplinary study,from the perspective of economics,using comparison analysis and empirical research,analyze the EU and USA efficiency defence research and the main points of policy,research and explore the system of anti competitive effects and welfare effects in horizontal and vertical mergers,China’s antitrust policy suggestions are given finally.The article is aimed at the mechanism of damage of horizontal and vertical mergers and the welfare results to study the factors of efficiency defence.Specifically,It can be divided into the following questions.First of all,what is the mechanism of horizontal and vertical mergers to harm competition?What’s the welfare consequences in horizontal and vertical mergers?Second,analyze the welfare standard in efficiency defence issues,and from the economic model to analyze whether the horizontal and vertical merger welfare results can be passed on to consumers? Third,compared with attitude and implementation of the European Union and the United States merger guidelines about efficiency defence,what kind of merger control should China take?Around these queations,combined with the research of other scholars,the article has carried on the discussion from following parts.First, sort out and study the anti-competitive effect and efficiency improvement in the horizontal and vertical mergers.The anti-competitive effect and the improvement of efficiency is an important index of the antitrust review,because the welfare result depends on both of them.This is the core of efficiency defences.Second,another important part of the efficiency of defence is the welfare standard choice,using different welfare standards will produce different results of the review.Analysis of the welfare standard choice,using economics model to analyze the pass on of the efficiency for price in different market,explore the pass-on degree of the efficiency.Third,using Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA) to find wheather there are changes for efficiency before and after the horizontal and vertical merger,this provides a certain basis.Finally,compare and analysze of the European Union and the United States merger control policy,according to the legislative purpose of the antimonopoly law of our country,put forward China’s anti-monopoly policy suggestions.We should pay attention to the efficiency of merger,absorb the essence from the Chicago School and post Chicago School,we can learn the merger guidelines from Europe and the United States and establish a preliminary analysis framework for different types of merger gradually.