Ownership Consolidation and Product Characteristics: A Study of the US Daily Newspaper Market
2013; American Economic Association; Volume: 103; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1257/aer.103.5.1598
ISSN1944-7981
Autores Tópico(s)Media Influence and Politics
ResumoThis paper develops a structural model of newspaper markets to analyze the effects of ownership consolidation, taking into account not only firms' price adjustments but also the adjustments in newspaper characteristics. A new dataset on newspaper prices and characteristics is used to estimate the model. The paper then simulates the effect of a merger in the Minneapolis newspaper market and studies how welfare effects of mergers vary with market characteristics. It finds that ignoring adjustments of product characteristics causes substantial differences in estimated effects of mergers. (JEL G32, L13, L82, M37)
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