Cited by 980Corporate Finance and GovernanceMerger and Competition AnalysisFinancial Markets and Investment Strategies

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 153 of the 159 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; 2 of the 42 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

Anticompetitive Effects of Common Ownership

Open access
AZAR, JOSÉ, SCHMALZ, MARTIN C., TECU, ISABEL·2018·The Journal of Finance

Abstract

Many natural competitors are jointly held by a small set of large institutional investors. In the U.S. airline industry, taking common ownership into account implies increases in market concentration that are 10 times larger than what is presumed likely to enhance market power by antitrust authorities. Within-route changes in common ownership concentration robustly correlate with route-level changes in ticket prices.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/jofi.12698

Cites

153 of 153 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

89 Own result · 61 Own interpretation · 35 No basis given · 17 No full text of the sources · 12 Own method · 11 Sources not found · 2 Not checked yet · 1 Supported · 1 Supported so far

Show all 128 claims

  • Probably not a substantial claim. 42
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 71
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 6
101 of 101
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Institutions with less than 0.5% of shares have no weight in the objective function of the firm.

    “Doing so amounts to assuming that institutions with less than 0.5% have no weight in the objective function of the firm; weconsider variations later.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Wells Fargo's CEO understands that it is not in his largest shareholders' best interest to compete aggressively for market share against Bank of America, even without explicit communication.

    “it seems reasonable to assume that Wells Fargo's CEO understands that it is not in his largest shareholders' best interest to compete aggressively for market share against Bank of America, even without explicit communication with either shareholders or competitors' managers.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Top management teams of the largest US airlines learned about major shifts in the ownership structure of the industry even without being personally informed by Warren Buffett.

    “We find it equally likely that the top management teams of the United States' largest airlines also learned about major shifts in the ownership structure of the industry even without being personally informed by Warren Buffett.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Bank of America and JP Morgan are well-informed about these interests.

    “We feel equally assured that not only Bank of America, but also JP Morgan is well-informed about these interests”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The fund families' incentives are primarily determined by the value of their total assets under management.

    “the fund families' incentives, which -consistent with the incentives of their investors -are primarily determined by the value of their total assets under management.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Each route can be considered as a separate market.

    “each route can be considered as a separate market.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Control is proportional in the fraction of votes held.

    “the assumption that control is proportional in the fraction of votes held”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    MHHI delta is a reduced-form measure of reduced incentives to compete due to common ownership.

    “we do not estimate the model, but use MHHI delta as a reduced-form measure of reduced incentives to compete due to common ownership.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Smaller shareholders have no significant say in corporate strategy.

    “In the baseline specifications reported previously, we calculated the MHHI delta using all shareholders larger than 0.5%, assuming that smaller shareholders have no significant say in corporate strategy.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The cross-sectional distribution across US airline routes in the implied increase in common ownership from a hypothetical pre-merger combination of BlackRock and BGI's equity portfolios is uncorrelated with errors of the ticket price regression, conditional on controls.

    “More formally, the exclusion restriction is that the cross-sectional distribution across US airlines routes in the implied increase in common ownership from a hypothetical, pre-merger combination of BLK and BGI's equity portfolios is uncorrelated with errors of the ticket price regression, conditional on controls.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    In specifications estimating effects by shareholder rank, control is assumed to be exercised only by the largest 10, largest 5, largest 3, or single largest shareholder, with zero control assigned to all shareholders outside the top N ranks.

    “To further explore this idea, we now estimate specifications that assume control, for a given carrier and quarter, only by the largest 10, largest 5, largest 3, and only the single largest shareholder in the calculation of the MHHI delta.These specifications assign zero control to all shareholders outside the top N ranks, but keeps ownership rights for all shareholders.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    In the placebo test, only shareholders ranked below the top 10 are assumed to control the firm, with zero control assigned to the top 10 shareholders.

    “As a complement to the top-shareholder analysis, we now run a placebo test which does the opposite: we calculate the MHHI delta as if only shareholders ranked below top 10 controlled the firm.That is, for each carrier at each period in time, we assign zero control to the top 10 shareholders, and then re-calculate the MHHI deltas accordingly.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Shareholder control is proportional to the number of shares they own.

    “In our calculation of the MHHI deltas, we have assumed thus far that shareholder control is proportional to the number of shares they own.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Increasing market share may require costly managerial effort.

    “To see why doing nothing can be a sufficient mechanism by which common ownership can cause higher prices, assume that increasing market share may require costly managerial effort.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Firms internalize externalities imposed on commonly owned firms.

    “Freeman (2016) finds an effect of common ownership on the longevity of customer-supplier relationships, which corroborates the assumption of the various theoretical models motivating our empirical analysis that firms internalize externalities imposed on commonly owned firms.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The past three decades have witnessed a shift from the low-common-ownership to the high-common-ownership equilibrium, because diversified institutions have increasingly crowded out concentrated owners as the most powerful shareholders of firms.

    “The past three decades have witnessed a shift from the low-common-ownership to the high-common-ownership equilibrium, because diversified institutions have increasingly crowded out concentrated owners as the most powerful shareholders of firms.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The merger of two large asset managers occurred for reasons unrelated to expected route-level differences in US airline ticket prices.

    “We then exploit variation in common ownership concentration generated by the merger of two large asset managers that arguably occurred for reasons unrelated to expected route-level differences in US airline ticket prices”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The counterfactual world in which firms are separately owned, or in which firms entirely ignore their owners' anti-competitive incentives caused by common ownership, is a valid comparison for estimating the effect of common ownership on airline ticket prices.

    “compared to a counterfactual world in which firms are separately owned, or in which firms entirely ignore their owners' anti-competitive incentives caused by common ownership.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The control variables included in the regressions are sufficient to address confounding from the listed events and other factors.

    “We also control for potential confounding events using the implied HHI delta in the route from the DL-NW, UA-CO, AA-US, and FL-WN mergers, the share in the route of AA in 2009Q1, and the change in log per capita income in the route from the start of the Great Recession until 2009Q1, each interacted with year-quarter fixed effects.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The pre-period 2009Q1 is before the Barclays BGI acquisition by BlackRock was announced.

    “The pre-period is 2009Q1 (the quarter before the Barclays BGI acquisition by BlackRock was announced).”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The counterfactual MHHI delta combining the holdings of Barclays and BlackRock represents the change in common ownership caused by the acquisition.

    “we calculate a counterfactual MHHI delta in 2009Q1 combining the holdings of Barclays and BlackRock”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The Thomson-Reuters dataset is incomplete and features various other inaccuracies.

    “The Thomson-Reuters dataset is well-known to be incomplete and feature various other inaccuracies.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Capacity pre-commitments typically happen about one year before the flight.

    “which typically happen about one year before the flight”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The paper abstracts away from frictions associated with imperfect vertical integration.

    “We thus abstract away from frictions associated with imperfect vertical integration(Forbes and Lederman, 2009, 2010).”
24 of 24

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

3 of 3

Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. BlackRock 2011 Corporate governance and responsible investment at BlackRock Annual Review. Available athttps://www.blackrock.com/corporate/literature/fact‐sheet/blk‐responsible‐investment‐report‐2011.pdf.
  2. Bolle Friedel, 1992, Competition among mutually dependent sellers, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE)/Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft, 148, 209
  3. International Air Transport Association (IATA) 2015 Airline profitability strengthens further IATA Press Release p. 1. Available athttp://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2015-06-08-03.aspx.
  4. Margotta Donald, 2010, Adolf Berle and revolution in the modern corporation, Business Review, 15, 62

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Metadata

Authors
AZAR, J., SCHMALZ, M. C., & TECU, I.
Affiliations
  • University of Michigan (US)
  • American Bar Association (US)
Venue
The Journal of Finance
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2018-08
Volume
73
Issue
4
Pages
1513-1565
ISSN
  • 0022-1082 (ISSN-L)
  • 1540-6261
OpenAlex
W2887416572
Cited by
980
References
159
Citations by year
2026: 124 · 2025: 183 · 2024: 145 · 2023: 109 · 2022: 90 · 2021: 98 · 2020: 91 · 2019: 72 · 2018: 43
FWCI
222.98
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • The Journal of Finance (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion, public-domain)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Finance › Corporate Finance and Governance
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Merger and Competition Analysis
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Finance › Financial Markets and Investment Strategies
Keywords
collective ownership, institutional investors, competition law, market concentration, airline industry, ticket prices, asset managers, diversification, corporate governance, product market competition

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