Spatial Competition and Vertical Integration; Cement and Concrete Revisited: Reply
回应McBride 1983年关于水泥企业纵向一体化动机的研究，指出其实证设计存在缺陷，无法区分企业是为规避寡头定价而一体化，还是仅对已下降的价格做出反应。
In this Review (1983), Mark McBride reconsiders the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) enforcement policy toward vertical mergers between cement and ready-mix concrete firms. In response to a significant increase in acquisitions of ready-mix concrete firms by cement manufacturers during the 1960's, the FTC undertook a series of legal actions to block or dissolve the mergers. The actions of the FTC constituted one of the most intensive efforts undertaken to date to challenge vertical mergers in a single industry.' McBride (p. 1012) notes that the actions of the FTC provoked considerable debate concerning the motivation for the mergers both in the industry and in academe. A significant number of articles were published advancing various reasons for the mergers. In addition to the FTC's main contention that the mergers were motivated by a desire for captive markets, it has been suggested that there were economies of integration or that the mergers were the outcome of an erroneous view of the potential benefits to foreclosure held by executives in the beleaguered cement industry.2 McBride's 1983 paper offers another explanation for the mergers. His argument is that vertical integration was undertaken to avoid rigid oligopolistic pricing in the cement industry.3 The empirical results presented by McBride suggest that vertical integration was a significant factor in the decline of cement prices in the 1960's. The purpose of this comment is to point out some of the problems with McBride's analysis. In particular, we show that the experimental design of his testing equation is faulty and does not offer a test of his hypothesis. As a result, McBride's analysis does not provide convincing evidence on whether cement firms vertically integrated to avoid rigid oligopolistic pricing, or if cement firms were merely reacting to prices that had already begun to decline. Our intent, however, is not to challenge McBride's contention that vertical integration can provide lower prices to consumers. Rather, we would argue that the evidence presented at the FTC hearings involving cement and ready-mix concrete firms as well as McBride's and others' analyses illustrate the problems in discerning the motives for mergers.4