Is the Merger the Problem Or Just the Entities Involved?

Last Updated: 13 Apr 2020
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The purpose of this essay is not to determine whether or not, were the merger to go ahead, would it significantly lower competition (slc), as without new players entering the game this is somewhat inevitable. Our concern is whether any entrant that has the capacity to counterbalance this reduced competition in the market is significantly deterred from entering due to the existance of barriers. In determining this it must be proven that entry is not only possible but likely (European Union, 2004). One must not get too bogged down in proving that entrants can enter a market as this information is rather trivial.

Competition policy must comprehend the perspective of the potential entrant in which case it does not matter if they could enter, but whether or not they would. The likelihood of entry is based on profitability in a post-merger scenario (Masey, 2008). In turn the profitability of entering the market is determined by a number of factors including barriers to entry which are relevant to this case, not because they enable incumbents to make excess profits but because they reduce entrant profitability.

Once proven likely the entity must prove that an entrant would be able to enter the market in a timely fashion in order to pose a genine threat to the incumbent firm (European Union, 2004). If there is too great a time lag the merged entity may benefit from anti-competitive behaviour (such as setting prices above a competitive level) for long enough to create a lasting negative effect before the competitor enters the market.

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As long as the returns on engaging in such activity are high enough to cover any switching costs and opportunity costs forgone, the trade-off faced by the incumbent favors anti-competitive behaviour, if even only in the short-run, and the threat of potential entry will not have the required restraining affect. This point is reiterrated by McAfee et al. in their paper entitled ‘When are Sunk Costs Barriers to Entry? ’, saying, ‘Entrants might take so long to achieve market significance that the merger nonetheless produces sustained anti-competitive affects’ (2004).

Having met the two previous criteria it must then be proven that, even if the firm manages to successfully enter the market, the competition they provide will be sufficient to actually exert a constraint on the merged entity, the same as or at least close to that currently exerted on the proposed merging entities by each other (European Union, 2004). In the case of this merger in particular this is where the greatest challenge lies for the merging parties as the commission finds them to be eachothers ‘closest competitors’(European Union, 2007) and are in fact, on many of the overlapping routes, eachothers only competitors.

Identifying a potential entrant with the scope of bearing any constraint on the merged entity seeems unlikely in which case the Commission is within its rights to block the proposal. If potential entrants do not meet all three of the aforementioned criteria the merger will not be passed. In order to truly understand the subject of barriers to entry we must first refer to the surrounding economic theory from which we can then draw our own conclusions.

Essentially there are two central and contradicting schools of thought pioneered by Joe S. Bain and George J. Stigler respectively. In his 1956 book entitled ‘Barriers to New Competition’, Bain defines barriers to entry as ‘the set of technology or product conditions that allow incumbent firms to earn economic profits in the long run’ and identifies three main causes of such barriers, namely; Economies of scale, Product diferentiation and Absolute cost advantages.

While it is evident that Bain is emphasizing the ability of the incumbent to earn excess profits, Stigler, in contrast, focuses more on the entrant’s perspective defining a barrier as ‘a cost of producing.. which must be borne by a firm which seeks to enter an industry but is not borne by firms already in the industry’ (1968). Both definitions have their virtues in helping us to grasp the rather allusive concept of a barrier to entry.

One might argue however, that the Bainian view could be construed as too broad in one sense in that not everything enabling existing firms to earn profits in the long run is necessarily unavailable to potential entrants, but also restrictive in the sense that other factors may be at work such as reputation of the incumbent or customer loyalty which do not fall into the domain of ‘technology or product conditions’ but may well deter entry.

In light of this Stigler presents a much narrower definition based on cost differentiation between entrants and incumbents excluding barriers, such as scale economies as long as equal access to technology exists. Again however, this definition is not without its flaws with controversy arising from the use of the word ‘must’, suggesting that only costs that the entrant is absolutely required to incur in order to enter the market can be thought of as sunk and therefore as barriers, excluding so called ‘avoidable costs’ (Sutton, 1992).

The second issue often raised with Stiglers definition is his use of the present tense. He states that the cost acts as a barrier as long as it ‘is’ not borne by the incumbent firm, failing to address circumstances where it ‘was’ at some point in the past which could lead to misclassification of costs as sunk, giving a warped barrier measurement. For this reason and the relative restrictiveness of Stigler’s definition I will continue this essay adopting a Bainian approach, largely in line with that taken by the commission whereby economies of scale can, in some circumstances, present barriers to entry.

Were I to follow Stigler’s view many of these would be excluded (to the benefit of Ryanair). One cannot deny the increased ability of the merged entity to take advantage of further cross-subsidization on an increased number, and frequency, of routes, achieving incumbent advantages over potential entrants. In Eu Competition law there is no explicit framework in existance with which we can categorize barriers and judgement is made on a case-by-case basis (OECD, 2007).

For this reason manipulation of the various definitions of entry barriers for their benefit is both appealing and by all means within the realms of possibilty for both the commission and Ryanair. Very different conclusions as to the effects of the proposed merger on competition and indeed the appropriateness of the commission’s ruling can be reached depending on these definitions. Furthermore some economists have been known to accuse the EU Commission to be too traditionalist in their approach to the subject of mergers, defining too broad a perimeter into which various ‘barriers to entry’ may fall (Jacobson, 1997).

In the case of Ryanairs propsed aquistion of Aer Lingus is it fair to say they are, as it were, guilty as charged? Butterworth (1992) warns against the dangers of ‘taking anything that makes entry into a market more difficult as barriers to entry. ’ The difficulty lies in distinguishing between additional costs or ‘rent to the incumbent firm’, due to superior efficiencies within the incumbent(s) and ‘rent’ due to first mover or incumbent advantages (Harbord and Hoehn, 1994).

Essentially the commission must be careful not to punish Ryanair for benefitting from greater efficiencies and wrongly label cost advantages arising from this and nothing else as barriers to entry. This would create a disincentive for development and achieving greater efficiency, hence defeating the very aim of EU compeition law ie. to prevent incumbents from performing inefficiently. Having touched on the approach taken by the cimmission let us now move into a more detailed analysis of the barriers they put forward in protest to the merger, how they serve to deter entry and respective counterarguments.

McAfee et al. In their paper discuss the theory of ‘Primary’ versus ‘Ancillary’ barriers, whereby only primary barriers constitute barriers to entry independantly of each other and ancillary barriers serve to magnify the effects of such primary barriers but do not themselves create a barrier to entry (2004). ‘What might seem like a fairly innocuous circumstance when regarded individually may be more problematic when the presence of other barriers is taken into account’ (OECD 2005, p. 9) I highlight this point to explain my choice to first discuss the barrier created by Ryanair’s reputation of aggressive retaliation to entry to the market as, in my opinion, this is the most powerful and effective primary barrier for which problems such as congestion and the level of sunk costs (which shall be discussed in due course) are ancillaries. The other key point concerning this barrier is the fact that the problem already exists in a pre-merger market as it is a defining characteristic of Ryanair (European Union, 2007) not just the potential merged entity.

While I cannot deny this strategic annialation of the competition by forcing them out of the market through artificial and temporary lowering of prices and/or increasing of capacity on the routes being entered does deter entry, it is the role of the commission to determine whether the merger will result in slc, not the individual behaviour of Ryanir. In light of this some may raise concerns over the relevance of this strategy as a barrier to entry but for the purpose of this essay it is the anchor for the effects of the remaining barriers.

One can also argue that the scope of the merged entity to engage in such strategic activity will be enhanced post-merger and the only airline with any restrictive power over Ryanair in this regard is Aer Lingus. However, in my opinion the commission’s decision did not focus on this aspect of the problem but merely its current existance. For this reason and the size constraints of this essay I am not going to focus on this barrier individually.

Instead attention will be focused on the other barriers arising specifically from the merger and the impact this will have on potential entrants when considered in conjunction with the aforementioned practice of predation. Similarly while reference will be made to the incredibly strong brand position of both Ryanair and Aer Lingus individually and the merged entity within the Irish market, it will again be in the context of how this creates barriers alongside other factors and how the various ancillaries significantly worsen the scenario in this particular case.

While it may seem odd to ommit, what I consider to be, two of the three primary barriers at work from our detailed discussion, I am more concerned with the technicalities of this case making it one of the most challenging faced by the commission to date. Also for the most part I agree with the commission’s decisions and treatment of both and therefore detailed analysis makes for a rather repetitive read. Let us look first at the issue of both airlines having a substantial base at Dublin Airport, the third primary barrier and unique to this merger case.

Sharing a base empowers Aer Lingus with increased flexibility allowing them to constrain Ryanair in a way that no other airline currently has the capacity to do (Gadas et al. , 2007). Evidentally removing Aer Lingus as the main competitor would result in slc, unless there existed another airline that would be likely to replace Aer Lingus in this constraining capacity. The important point here is that the key reason Aer Lingus is in such a position is largely due to this base advantage, suggesting that a potential entrants would only exert the same level of competition if it too was based in the same airport.

Look at this way, if Ryanair was to redeploy aircrafts to flood the capacity of a newly entered ex-Dublin route, which they can do easily and cost effectively from their base, Aer Lingus likewise has the same level of flexibility, enabling them to easily switch capacity on their routes and swoop in to capture customers on Ryanair’s reduced capacity route. No other airline is currently in a position to provide this form of restrain. Similarly they could not risk their closest competitors at their base airport winning over customers from which ever route they decided to redistribute the supply of aircrafts from.

The commission acknowledges potential competitors such as Aer Arann and CityJet who also have bases at Dublin, however, again we return to the significance clause. It would be wasteful to expend too much time and energy on decerning whether or not they would enter the routes in question as even if they did, they operate on such a small scale relative to the merged entity it would have little to no impact. In their decision the commission dismiss the possibilities of potential entrants post-merger on all accounts ie. y setting up a base in Ireland and entering the market that way, by operating on a point-to-point basis or by building up a base in destination airports (Eurpoean Union, 2007). While I agree with the inclusion of the shared airport base as a barrier to entry, I do question some of the arguments against the potential of destination based competitors or at least I consider competition of this nature to be the most plausible in the case of the proposed merger. To give a brief overview the commission find it unlikely that potential competitors looking to set up a base in the European market will select Dublin airport over other options.

This is a valid point considering the congestion problems, peripheral location and in a rather self-fulfilling nature, the presence of two dominant brands such as Aer Lingus and Ryanair (European Union, 2007). As you will see, as we progress through our analysis of the various barriers, one of the most challenging and hence anti-competative aspects of this merger is that it is not so much the individual impact of the barriers themselves but more so their reinforcing effect on eachother. It seems that many of the barriers found by the commission are found to be barriers on the very basis of the existance of one another.

It presents us with almost a chicken and egg situation whereby it is difficult to determine where the ‘primary’ problem or barrier lies and which only serve as ‘ancillaries’ to exacerbate the issue. In terms of ‘point-to-point’ entry we can remove the possibility using the logic of the likelihood of entry equating to entry profitability (post-merger). Entering the market from this angle is costly and indeed airlines remaining in Dublin airport overnight do not reap the same benefits as those enjoyed by airlines based there such as minimized disruption costs, flexibility between route capacity and easy redeployment of aircrafts and staff.

They are, therefore, at an immediate disadvantage but are also, more importantly, entering at a heightened risk. In order to make such a venture viable the entrant would need to operate several journeys a day in which case they would need to gauruntee sufficient traffic to support such an investment. They could not adjust to sudden market fluctuations in the same way as the merged entity and for this reason potential entrants are extremely unlikely to engage in such an activity.

As for ‘destination-based competitors’ the commission again finds several problems with Ryanair’s argument that they should benefit from the same advantages as the merged entity, eminating from their base at the destination airport. They argue that due to the assymmetry of the origination of customers, destination-based competitors are at a direct disadvantage. This is because the customers travelling on the routes to/from Ireland, are predominantly Irish and hence are more likely to fly with an Irish airline, based in Ireland.

Furthermore it argues that as competitors would only be operating one route to Dublin it could not spread marketing and promotion costs aimed specifically at Irish customers as thinly as the merged entity. Lastly the commission concludes that potential entrants are unlikely to pick the Dublin market to enter from their usual spoke development model due to the aggressive reputation of Ryanair, let alone the merged entity (again we see the interaction between primary and ancillary barriers) and the fact that 30 of the routes on which Ryanair and Aer Lingus or both currently operate have no competitor based at the other end.

The fact that there are, as it stands, no competitors based at the destination airport of 30 of the routes in question however, is not necessarily grounds for dismissal. If the comission is examining the likelihood of competitors setting up base at Dublin and finding it unlikely on the basis of it being an undesirable location for a number of reasons both related to and independent of the proposed merger, surely the possibility of a competitor setting up a base at a destination airport is too examinable and in fact far more likely.

In terms of maintaining a low-cost base in order to directly compete with the merged firm, potential entrants could set up a base in a secondary airport, allowing them to compete on the ‘low-frills’ market and still benefit from base advantages such as flexibility etc. across various other routes. Secondly, in relation to the problems faced due to the assymmetry of the origination of customers and marketing and promotion expenses, one could argue that altough the ratio may be thus, if an airline was to invest heavily in marketing and promotion in their base country who is to say it would not shift in their favour.

Then they too could advertise for all routes from their base airport, inculding that to Dublin, and potentially more customers using the Dublin route would then be based outside of Ireland giving them a similar advantage over the merged entity. Likewise this would allow them to achieve economies of scale on advertising costs and a greater degree would not be considered sunk as general airline promotion would not be unrecoverable in the case of the failure of the Dublin route.

I acknowledge that one might question how significant the impact of this type of competition would be considering it only competes on one route, however if you consider the possibility of several competitors entering the market in this way, or indeed competitors from several airports (more than likely secondary) this may provide substantial constraint for the merged entity. The next barrier up for discussion is that of congestion at Dublin Airport and some destination airports due to the limited number of ‘slots’ available.

Despite citing this as a barrier to potential entrants the commission does acknowledge that the problems in Dublin are not as bad as many other European airports. Similarly while problems remain at several of the destination airports, Ryanair’s use of secondary airports also helps to reduce the severity of the issue (European Union, 2007). In Dublin however, congestion during peak hours still presents a problem for potential entrants considering the huge majority of slots that would be allocated to the merged entity, making it difficult for any new entrant to have any bargaining power to even get their foot in the door.

This definitely constitues a barrier in terms of reduced access to essential inputs, an advantage awarded to the incumbent for reasons other than superior efficiency. It significantly reduces the appeal of flying in and out of Dublin as long waits increase costs and customer dissatisfaction. In terms of constraint only airlines with slots readily available can act quickly enough to respond to anti-competitive behaviour by the merged entity, keeping them in check.

The only couter-argument I have in this regard resides in the fact that Ryanair said themselves in their proposal that they planned to continue to run the two entities under their respective identities, ie the brand of both Ryanair and Aer Lingus would remain. It did state however that it intended to directly apply the Ryanair business model to Aer Lingus. This would obviously be in an attempt to reduce costs as much as possible which would then give weight to the argument that it is not unlikely that they would switch some of Aer Lingus’ current services to secondary destination airports.

Post-merger, if this shift from primary to secondary airports were to occur it would free up some highly sought after slots in congested destination airports which could in turn induce market entry on those routes. However, without reducing congestion within Dublin airport it seems the issue will still serve to deter potential entrants. Moving forward let us turn our attention to the hotly debated issue of sunk costs. How we define sunk costs plays a huge role in determining which barriers are considered barriers to entry.

In its most basic terms sunk cost can be definied as costs incurred by a firm that are unrecoverable in the event of failure. The possibility of making a loss, be it on advertising or capital, on failed entry undeniably reduces entrant profitability and is therefore considered a disincentive to enter the market. I do however see the argument in treating marketing and advertising costs similarly to capital investment in the sense that it is only included as a barrier if it was not at one stage incurred by the incumbent (Sutton, 1992). Sunk costs re often excluded from other definitions on the basis of there being no sunk costs in the long run, however, for the purpose of this case I agree with the commission’s decision to include sunk costs as a barrier as potential entrants are likely to base their decision on the short to medium-term rather than the long term due to other factors such as increased levels of uncertainty. The other interesting aspect about sunk costs is determining whether they are endogenous or exogenous which again plays a part in evaluating their full affect in a merger scenario.

If the sunk costs are found to be endogenous an increase in demand does not lead to new entry rather a competitive escalation in investments raises the equilibrium level of sunk costs (De Le Mano, 2004). An example of this would be advertising costs faced by potential entrants, which are proven to be substantial in the airline industry, providing a significant barrier to entry for competitors heightened, by the strong brand position of both Ryanair and Aer Lingus as they stand, let alone post-merger.

Sutton supports this in his theory predicting that in markets with low levels of endogenous sunk costs an increase in demand may lead to an indefinite expansion of the number of firms in the market but in industries were endogenous sunk costs are high (ie where marketing is an effective tool) the market will remain relatively concentrated despite a similar increase.

While some smaller airlines, such as Aer Arann would encounter significant exogenous sunk costs in the form of investing in increased capacity aircrafts in order to compete with the merged entity(Europena Union, 2007), it is these endogenous costs that would be the root of the problem for most entrants because of the issues of brand position and most importantly retaliation from the incumbent to market entry. The problem here is that the merged entity would hold such a large proportion of the market share, 80% as predicted by the commission (Massey, 2008), that significant investment in promotion would be deemed necessary.

However, this would be more than matched by the incumbent which would clearly be at a significant advantage building from such a well-established customer base. Of futher concern regarding this case is the fact that sunk costs significantly influence decisions under uncertainty (Dixit and Pindyck 1994) and firms with substantial market power (Sutton, 1992). As we have mentioned there is certainly a degree of uncertainty for potential entrants as the market does not seem to be growing at any substantial rate hence entrants will be wary as to whether or not there is significant demand to warrant entry in the first place.

Sunk costs will only serve to magnify this wariness. In terms of market power the unprecedentedly strong position in the market of the merged entity is of the upmost concerns to entrants. The problem here is that sunk costs only present a problem in the instance of failure (Shiman, 2009) as, if market entry is successful, the entrant will make enough return on their investment to at least cover sunk costs, that is in fact the definition of successful entry by some accounts. The issue with this merger is that even if Ryanair can argue low sunk costs, (as they attempt to do stating their marketing figures as €0. 0 per person etc) (European Union, 2007), the fact remains that the risk is still incredibly high because the likelihood of failure is substatially escalated due to their strategic behaviour. The liklihood of sinking these costs far outweighs the costs themselves, hence magnifying their effect and creating a barrier to entry. They key point here is that it is not in fact sunk costs themselves that are the issue but the lethal combination of sunk costs and Ryanairs aggressive reputation that creates the problem in the mature of an ancillary barrier as previously discussed.

Sunk costs act as somewhat of a catalyst in this scenario. This would suggect that in order to push this merger proposal further, Ryanair should focus on remedying the primary issue of predation as without it sunk costs become somewhat trivial. One final aspect worth mentioning when addressing the commission’s decision to block the proposed merger is the degree of damage entry barriers, provided they exist, will cause to social welfare and whether this should be considered in the measurement process.

It is useful here to refer to Weizsacker’s definition of barriers to entry; ‘A barrier to entry is a cost of producing that must be borne by a ? rm seeking to enter an industry but is not borne by ? rms already in the industry, and that implies a distortion in the allocation of resources from the social point of view’ (1980). Comparing this to previous definitions we see Weisacker has introduced an additional requirement in order for market conditions to be considered barriers.

The application of this definition could potentially narrow down some of the commission’s objections to the merger, weakening their case and even highlight potential positive effects of barriers to entry. To demonstrate this point Weizsacker constructs a model industry with scale economies showing that the number of active firms in a Cournot (oligopolist market for homogenous products/services (Leveque, 2006)) equilibrium with free entry exceeds the number of active firms that would maximize social surplus. (McAfee, 2004).

In this paricular model, barriers to entry would have improved social welfare and while I am not saying definitively that this is the case in the Irish airline indutry, what I think is important for the commission to draw from this is that they must take into account all factors within the market and to a certain extent whether entry is necessarily a good thing at this time. Furthermore one must be cautious to differentiate between the evolution of the airline inustry and the ever changing levels of competition within that industry, irrespective of the merger, and barriers arising as a direct result of the merger itself.

This would involve determining the efficient number or firms for the current Irish market, or on a route by route basis, and deciphering to what extent the actual number of market participants varies from this due to barriers to entry. The commission must acknowledge that the Irish aviation market is relatively small and unlikely to grow substantially in the near future, suggesting actual demand for market entratnts may not exist, irrespective of the merger.

Civil Aviation Authority (2006) notes that in contrast to the rapid growth of low cost/low fare airlines in Eurpoe, full service airlines have had no increase in their passengers since 2000. The Eu Merger Guidelines state themselves that ‘entry is more likely to be profitable in a market that is expected to experience high growth in the future than in a market that is mature or expected to decline,’ which seems to deem market entry unlikely in both pre and post-merger circumstances, calling into question the significance of the barriers discussed and their impact on social welfare.

Theoretically if no barriers exist, the efficient number or firms should exist, but if the market is nearing saturation and the efficient number or firms exist anyway, does it really matter? Drawing my assesment of the commission’s decision to block Ryanair’s acquisition of Aer Lingus to a close I think it important to state that overall I agree with the conclusions reached in both the 2007 and indeed, very recently, the 2013 document which, although it unfortunately did not recieve a fair share of the attention in this essay, is very much in line with its preceeding document.

From my study of the various theories surrounding the subject and analysis of the appropriate documents I found the key issues to be barriers that are inherent within one or other or both of the firms pre-merger that will then be magnified by ancillary barriers arising in a post-merger environment. This and the unique situation presented by a shared base airport make the Irish Aviation market an unattractive investment, but ultimately I ask the question, at the risk of assuming the role of a cynic, how atractive is it anyway?

My final food for thought on the subject is the self-fulfilling aspect of the entire decision making process in that, barriers are measured through the eyes of the potential entrant, therefore if they consider something a barrier, it almost automatically assumes the role of one (Clemens et at. , 2009). In this nature, through the publishing of their last decision document, stating the existance of several barriers to entry, competitors will be deterred from entering, suggesting the existance of barriers to entry.

This seems to be somewhat of a ‘catch-22’ whereby the commission says competitors will not enter because barriers exist, yet it seems competitors will not enter due to the fact that the commission predicts they won’t. As Kreps and Wilson say in their book ‘It may well be credible for an incumbent firm to fight entry in some markets (or instances) in order to deter entry elsewhere in the future’ (1982), is it too late to reverse these barriers and has the damage already been done? References European Union (2004), ‘Guidelines on the assessment of horizontal mergers nder the Council Regulation on the control of concentrations between undertakings’, (5. 2) Massey P. (2008), ‘Commission’s economic analysis shoots down Ryanair’s proposed acquisition of Aer Lingus’, Paper presented to Competition Press Conference, 30th April 2008. McAfee R. et al. (2004), ‘When are sunk costs barriers to entry? Entry Barriers in economic and antitrust analysis: What is a barrier to entry? ’ https://docs. google. com/a/tcd. ie/viewer? a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0. 6&thid=13cf1fe55c305b6f&mt=application/pdf&url=https://mail. google. com/mail/u/0/? i%3D2%26ik%3D66a6112695%26view%3Datt%26th%3D13cf1fe55c305b6f%26attid%3D0. 6%26disp%3Dsafe%26realattid%3Df_hdcwsvvi5%26zw&sig=AHIEtbQdrvmZEuISzSnVD_spwZzkhUUVoA European Union (2007), ‘Case No COMP/M– Ryanair / Aer Lingus: Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 Merger Procedure, Article 8 (3). Bain J. (1956), Barriers to New Competition, Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Stigler G. (1968), The Organisation of Industry, Homewood, IL: Richard D Irwin Inc. Sutton J. (1992), ‘Sunk Costs and Market Structure: Price competition, advertsising, and the evolution of concentration’, MIT Press, London.

Jacobson D. (1997), ‘The EU merger regulations: Restrictions or promotion’, Multinational Business Review (Vol. 5 Issue 1, p38, 8p), St. Louis University. Butterworth (1992): “Competition Law Handbook”, 3rd Edition, London, Butterworths. Harbord D. and Hoehn T. (1994): ‘Barriers to Entry and Exit in European Competition Policy’, International Review of Law and Economics (14, 411-435), London. OECD (2005), ‘Policy Roundtables: Barriers to Entry’, OECD Competition Study Gadas R. , Koch O. , Parplies K. and Beuve-Mery H. 2007), ‘Ryanair/Aer Lingus: Even “low-cost” monopolies can harm consumers’, Competiton Policy Newsletter (no. 3). De Le Mano M. (2008), ‘Barriers to Entry’, European Commission. Dixit K. and Pindyck R. (1994), ‘Investment under Uncertainty? ’ Princeton University Press. Shiman D. (2008), ‘The Intuition Behind Sutton's Theory of Endogenous Sunk Costs, Federal Communications Commission, http://papers. ssrn. com/sol3/papers. cfm? abstract_id=1018804 Weizsacker C. Von (1980), A Welfare Analysis of Barriers to Entry, Bell Journal of Economics, pg. 399-420.

Leveque F. (2006), ‘Statistical Analysis of European Merger Control, Working Paper, Ecole des mines de Paris. Civil Aviation Authority (2006), ‘Civil Aviation Authority Strategic Plan 2006-2009, http://www. caa. co. za/CAA%20Info/CAA%20STRATEGIC%20PLAN_2006_2009. pdf Clemens H. , Lutz-Ron G. , Kemp S. and Dijkstra G. (2009): ‘Perceptions regarding strategic and structural entry barriers’, Small Bus Econ (35:19–33), Springerlink. com OECD (2007), ‘Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development:Competition and Barriers to Entry’, http://www. oecd. rg/competition/37921908. pdf U. S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (2010), ‘Horizontal Merger Guidelines’, file:///Users/COC/Documents/Competition%20Essay/Horizontal%20Merger%20Guidelines%20(08:19:2010). html Kreps D. and Wilson R. (1982), ‘Reputation and Imperfect Information’, Journal of Economic Theory 27, 253-279 , Stanford University, California. McAfee R. , Mialon H. and Williams M. (2003), ‘Economic and Antitrust Barriers to Entry, Department of Economics, Austin, Texas, http://www. mcafee. cc/Papers/PDF/Barriers2Entry. pdf

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Is the Merger the Problem Or Just the Entities Involved?. (2017, Jun 02). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/ryanair-aer-lingus-and-barriers-to-entry-is-the-merger-the-problem-or-just-the-entities-involved-a-detailed-analysis-from-and-economic-perspective/

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