Research reveals a negative link between market power and systematic risk during low competition periods, suggesting implications for mergers.
We examine the impact of product market competition on firms' systematic risk. Using a measure of total product market similarity, we document a strong negative relationship between market power and market betas. The effect more than triples in the most recent period of low competition. Anticompetitive mergers result in a significant reduction in market betas. Firms facing less competition seem to be partially insulated from systematic discount-rate shocks. Lower equity costs therefore imply that market power is partly self-perpetuating.
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Hollstein et al. (2023) studied this question.
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