【题  目】Merger profitability in Cournot markets

【时  间】2025年3月17日（星期一），14:00-16:00

【地  点】后主楼1610会议室

【主讲人】Simon George Brook Cowan 副教授（University of Oxford）

【主持人】许敏波 副教授（北京师范大学经济与工商管理学院）

 

摘要：General conditions that are sufficient for mergers in symmetric Cournot industries to be profitable or unprofitable are found and applied. If inverse demand curvature is weakly higher than the number of firms then all mergers are profitable. The same condition implies that outputs are strategic complements locally. If demand is log-concave, so inverse demand curvature is at most 1, two-firm mergers are unprofitable. Log-concavity of demand implies that outputs are strategic substitutes. The issue of the profitability of mergers in Cournot was first addressed by Salant, Switzer, and Reynolds (1983) in a model with linear demand.

 

报告人简介： 

Current Post Wigmore Clarendon Fellow and Tutor in Economics at Worcester College, University of Oxford, and Associate Professor in Economics, Department of Economics.

 

Research interests: Industrial organization: regulation of utilities, price regulation, price discrimination, competition policy. Environmental policy.

 

Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Economics, 2012-2015

Head of Department, Department of Economics, 2019-2020

Deputy Head of Department, Department of Economics 2001-2003

Course Director for Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and Chair of the PPE Committee 2005-2007

Vice Provost, Worcester College, Oxford. 2006-2010; 2015-2016

Tutor for Admissions, Worcester College, Oxford (2001-02; 2004-05)

Managing Editor (1996-2005), Associate Editor (2005-2011), Oxford Economic Papers

Chair of the Board of Oxford Economic Papers Association

2016-2019 Editorial Board, Fiscal Studies

2000-2010 4 Editorial Board, Journal of Regulatory Economics

2005- Editorial Board, Oxford Review of Economic Policy

2011- Tutor (1994-96, 1999-2000, 2012-16) and Senior Tutor (1997-98) for the Oxford University Business Economics Program

Consultancy work for Coopers & Lybrand, Oxford Economic Research Associates, the World Bank, Isis Innovation, National Audit Office.