A Model of the Effect of Conglomeration and Risk-Aversion on Pricing: A Comment
评论了Bradburd关于企业合并影响定价的模型，指出在母子公司风险规避同质且无外部性时，合并仅在利润流负相关时发生，并分析了合并对价格或产量政策的不确定影响。
that unit costs are constant. This paper examines the effect of a merger on both the price and quantitysetting monopolist under uncertainty. The analysis is general because we allow both the parent and the subsidiary to change their policies after the merger. Furthermore, the model does not require the variance of profits to increase with price (quantity). We show that, given Bradburd's assumptions that the parent and subsidiary have homogeneous risk-aversions and there are no externalities, a merger will occur regardless of the behavioral mode chosen if and only if the profit streams are negatively correlated. Thus, it is inappropriate to proceed as Bradburd does, and analyze the effects of a merger for both positively and negatively correlated profits when risk-aversion is homogeneous. Furthermore, the effect of a conglomerate merger on the price (quantity) policy of the parent and subsidiary are ambiguous for Bradburd's N-division case regardless of whether the firm is a price or quantity-setter. Determinate results are obtained, however, for the two division case. In particular we show that, for the quantity-setting firm, each division of the conglomerate will increase (decrease) its output if the variance of its revenue increases (decreases)