Strategic Alliances, Shared Facilities, and Entry Deterrence

We explore some possible anticompetitive effects of one particular type of strategic alliance--common in the airline industry, among others--that involves the sharing of production capacity. An offer to share an existing facility can allow an incumbent to persuade a potential entrant not to build its own facility. We establish conditions under which an agreement to share will be anticompetitive in the sense that, absent the agreement, a more competitive outcome (i.e., entry with new capacity) would have obtained. Such alliances can reduce welfare even if the incumbent and entrant will not be direct competitors.