Presentation by FTC Economists at the Second Annual Meeting of the INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION CONFERENCE, downtown campus of Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, April 23-24, 2004
Presentations by FTC Economists:
Luke Froeb, Director, Bureau of Economics, will speak on "Economics and Antitrust Policy" as the Keynote Speaker at The European Association for Research in Industrial Economics (EARIE) 2004 Annual Meeting at the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, Berlin, Germany, September 2, 2004
Chris Adams presented his paper "Digital Demand: The Demand for Digital Cameras on eBay" (joint with William Vogt).
Dave Balan presented his paper "Media Mergers and the Ideological Content of Programming" (joint with Pat DeGraba and Abe Wickelgren).
Pat DeGraba presented his paper "Tying and Monopoly Leverage in Wholesale Markets".
Luke Froeb presented his paper "Variance and Smoothness Screens for Collusion" (joint with Rosa Abrantes-Metz and Chris Taylor).
Dan Hosken presented his paper: "The Economic Effects of the Marathon-Ashland Joint Venture "(joint with Chris Taylor).
Dan O'Brien presented his paper "Bargaining, Bundling, and Clout: The Portfolio Effects of Horizontal Mergers" (joint with Greg Shaffer).
Dave Schmidt presented his paper: "The Price Effects of a Merger of Complements: The Case of Peanut Butter and Jelly" (joint with Hajime Hadeishi, draft forthcoming).
Merger Simulation
A Daubert Discipline for Merger Simulation, Gregory J. Werden, Luke M. Froeb, and David T. Scheffman, February 16, 2004 (draft). [PDF 112K]
Abstract: For more than a decade, structural game-theory models have been used to predict the price effects of mergers, using what is termed “merger simulation.” We propose a discipline for merger simulation based on the Daubert reliability screen applied to all expert testimony. Specifically, we propose that every modeling choice in a merger simulation apt to matter significantly be accompanied either by some sort of justification or by a sensitivity analysis indicating its impact.
