Relatedly, the law-study explains that a
conglomerate merger will increase the profits that a conglomerate rival of the merged firm that operates in at least one market in which each merger partner operates can earn by practicing contrived oligopolistic pricing by enabling that rival to retaliate against the merged firm's undercutting not only within the market in which the merged firm had undercut its price(s) but also across markets against the merged firm if it undercuts such a rival's price(s) and to reciprocate to a merged firm that has abstained from undercutting not only within the market in which the merged firm has foregone that opportunity but also in a different market in which both it and the merged firm are operating.
Therefore, takeovers were not motivated to discipline target managers during the
conglomerate merger wave.
Renzi, The GE/Honeywell Merger." Catalyst in the Transnational
Conglomerate Merger Debate, 37 NEW ENG.
Ever since the
conglomerate merger wave of the 1960s, economists have tried to understand the efficiency properties of conglomerates.
During the heyday of the
conglomerate merger wave of the 1960s, for example, venerable "experts" advised Congressional committees, as well as Fortune 500 corporations, that conglomerates were the wave of the future.
"A Pure Financial Rationale for the
Conglomerate Merger." Journal of Finance, 26: 521-545.
The estimated coefficient for the different types of mergers support the hypothesis that workers are least likely to belong to a union if employed in industries with greater levels of
conglomerate merger activity.
Palia, 1999, "A Reexamination of the
Conglomerate Merger Wave in the 1960s: An Internal Capital Markets View," Journal of Finance 54, 1131-1152.
The attorney goes on to question the witness on a variety of topics, including contestability, predation, and horizontal, vertical, and
conglomerate merger policy.
In section IV we use the model as a framework to analyze two hypothetical situations, the first being entry into a supply agreement containing a most-favored-customer clause, and the second being a
conglomerate merger that may enable bundling.