Digging Deep to Compete: Vertical Integration, Product Market Competition and Prices
利用美国煤炭行业的自然实验，研究发现产品市场竞争加剧导致纵向整合发生率下降33%，原因是竞争使市场价格降低32%，削弱了纵向并购的激励。
This article establishes a causal effect of product market competition on vertical integration. I exploit a hitherto unexplored natural experiment in the U.S. coal mining industry and a unique mine‐level organizational data set. Following an exogenous increase in product market competition, the incidence of vertical integration fell by 33% within the treatment group relative to the counterfactual. I find novel evidence that transition to the lower degree of vertical integration is driven by competition's reducing market prices by 32% which decreased the incentive to conduct vertical mergers. I discuss several possible interpretations of these changes.