TY - JOUR
T1 - Merger control policy under China’s anti-monopoly law
AU - LIN, Ping
AU - ZHAO, Jingjing
PY - 2012/8
Y1 - 2012/8
N2 - China’s merger policy and enforcement approaches since its Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) took effect in August 2008 are by and large based on the same conceptual framework that is employed in advanced economies. While China has shown a very fast learning capability in conducting competition analysis, further capacity building in China is crucial. There is no clear evidence of industrial policy considerations being at the forefront in the eight published decisions by the Ministry of Commerce to date, except for its very early decisions. We propose a competition-neutral principle, which requires that a competition test be conducted before, and independently from, any consideration of industrial policy and argue that industrial policy matters only for competition-neutral mergers. On a more technical level, if China adopts the total welfare standard, then its treatment of efficiencies and the meaning of sufficiency of entry post merger should be modified accordingly from the US/EU consumer-oriented model.
AB - China’s merger policy and enforcement approaches since its Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) took effect in August 2008 are by and large based on the same conceptual framework that is employed in advanced economies. While China has shown a very fast learning capability in conducting competition analysis, further capacity building in China is crucial. There is no clear evidence of industrial policy considerations being at the forefront in the eight published decisions by the Ministry of Commerce to date, except for its very early decisions. We propose a competition-neutral principle, which requires that a competition test be conducted before, and independently from, any consideration of industrial policy and argue that industrial policy matters only for competition-neutral mergers. On a more technical level, if China adopts the total welfare standard, then its treatment of efficiencies and the meaning of sufficiency of entry post merger should be modified accordingly from the US/EU consumer-oriented model.
KW - China’s Anti-Monopoly Law
KW - Industrial policy
KW - Merger control
KW - Theory of harm
KW - Welfare standard
UR - http://commons.ln.edu.hk/sw_master/341
UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84863100682&doi=10.1007%2fs11151-012-9345-9&partnerID=40&md5=9e97df5f98728ac5d103dfa2b42d1c0c
U2 - 10.1007/s11151-012-9345-9
DO - 10.1007/s11151-012-9345-9
M3 - Journal Article (refereed)
SN - 0889-938X
VL - 41
SP - 109
EP - 132
JO - Review of Industrial Organization
JF - Review of Industrial Organization
IS - 1-2
ER -