博士（経済） / 16, 300 p. / Hitotsubashi University

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Economics / Philip G. Gayle / My dissertation is comprised of two essays in the field of industrial organization with an emphasis on the airline industry. In particular, I investigate how airline mergers and alliances affect the components of total cost. By using a methodology that does not require the researcher to have cost data, I am able to infer marginal costs, fixed costs and sunk costs changes associated with mergers and alliances. My first essay examines two recent airline mergers—Delta/Northwest and United/Continental. Most post-merger analysis in airlines disproportionately focuses on assessing price rather than cost changes. Perhaps one reason is that reliable price data are more readily available. Despite the difficulty of obtaining cost data, researchers have sought to empirically assess whether cost efficiency gains associated with a merger outweigh the increased market power of the merged firm. The results from my analysis suggest that both mergers are associated with marginal and fixed costs savings, but higher market entry costs. The magnitude of the cost effects differed across the mergers. Moreover, I find that the market power effects of these mergers were negligible. My second essay investigates the cost effects of the codesharing alliance between Delta, Northwest and Continental Airlines. Codesharing is one of the most popular forms of airline cooperation that allows an airline to market and sell seats on its partners’ flights as though it owns those flights. Studies have found that airline alliances have very little to no effect on total cost. Rather than analyzing cost as a whole, I study whether a disaggregate analysis on cost is more appropriate. I find evidence that forming an alliance helps generate more passenger traffic for the alliance partners thereby reducing the partner carriers' marginal cost. Even though the literature has found that the total cost effects to be small, an alliance can have a considerable impact on some components of cost.

<p>Vi ville med vår uppsats undersöka om strategiska allianser inom den internationella flygbranschen har lett till att medlemmarna i alliansen åtnjutit en förbättrad lönsamhet och expansion i verksamheten.</p><p>Den alliansen vi hade fokus på för undersökningen var Star Alliance och vi granskade utvecklingen av de utvalda lönsamhetsmåtten hos de fem flygbolagen som var med och upprättade denna allians. Vi undersökte även lönsamhetsfaktorerna för fyra flygbolag, som för den studerade tidsperioden inte ingick i någon strategisk allians. Dessa användes som jämförelseobjekt.</p><p>Urvalet gjordes utifrån att det var just dessa fem flygbolag som upprättade alliansen och att denna allians var den första av sitt slag. Urvalet av de fyra jämförelsebolagen gjordes utifrån att dessa var de få flygbolag av den traditionella typen som under studiens utvalda tidsperiod inte ingick i någon liknande allians.</p><p>Vi genomförde undersökningen genom att samla information hämtad ifrån flygbolagens årsredovisningar från 1994 till 2004 och försökte upptäcka trendbrott i nyckeltalens utvecklingar efter det att Star Alliance upprättades. För att förstärka tillförlitligheten av undersökningen använde vi de fyra jämförelseflygbolagen och genomförde en statistisk hypotesprövning för att testa om det förelåg någon signifikant skillnad gällande utvecklingen av lönsamhetsfaktorerna mellan bolagen i Star Alliance och jämförelsebolagen.</p><p>Resultatet av vår undersökning var att ingen tydlig lönsamhetsförbättring skett för bolagen inom Star Alliance. Vi kunde urskilja att jämförelsebolagen vi använt i undersökningen hade en liknande utveckling av de utvalda lönsamhetsfaktorerna. Eftersom ingen skillnad fanns mellan bolagen i alliansen och de utanför kan man dra slutsatsen att samarbetet inom Star Alliance inte förbättrat lönsamheten för medlemmarna mer än för bolag som inte ingår i någon allians.</p> / <p>The main purpose with our survey was to analyze if strategic alliances within the international airline business have led to increased profitability and strengthened the competitive advantage for the members of the alliance.</p><p>For our study we focused on Star Alliance and analyzed the development of the selected profitability indicators for the five members that founded it. We also analyzed the same indicators for four airlines that for the time period of the investigation were not members of a strategic alliance. These four airlines were used for purpose of comparison.</p><p>Our selection was made on the basis that there were these five airlines that founded the alliance and that Star Alliance was the first of its kind. The selection of the four airlines of comparison was made on the basis that these four airlines, for the studied time period, were not members of a strategic alliance.</p><p>We made the study by collecting information from the airlines annual reports for the years 1994 to 2004 and tried to discover any kind of differences for the time before and after the alliance was founded. To increase the credibility of the study we made a statistic hypothesis test to detect if there were any significant differences, regarding the profitability indicators and the competitive advantages, between the airlines within Star Alliance and the airlines of comparison.</p><p>The result of our study was that no legible improvement could be proven for the airlines that founded Star Alliance. We could detect that the comparison airlines we used for the survey had a similar development regarding the chosen profitability indicators and the competitive advantages. When no differences could be proven between these airlines, we drew the conclusion that the members in Star Alliance had not improved the studied indicators, to any greater extent than the airlines that were not members of a strategic alliance.</p>

Vi ville med vår uppsats undersöka om strategiska allianser inom den internationella flygbranschen har lett till att medlemmarna i alliansen åtnjutit en förbättrad lönsamhet och expansion i verksamheten. Den alliansen vi hade fokus på för undersökningen var Star Alliance och vi granskade utvecklingen av de utvalda lönsamhetsmåtten hos de fem flygbolagen som var med och upprättade denna allians. Vi undersökte även lönsamhetsfaktorerna för fyra flygbolag, som för den studerade tidsperioden inte ingick i någon strategisk allians. Dessa användes som jämförelseobjekt. Urvalet gjordes utifrån att det var just dessa fem flygbolag som upprättade alliansen och att denna allians var den första av sitt slag. Urvalet av de fyra jämförelsebolagen gjordes utifrån att dessa var de få flygbolag av den traditionella typen som under studiens utvalda tidsperiod inte ingick i någon liknande allians. Vi genomförde undersökningen genom att samla information hämtad ifrån flygbolagens årsredovisningar från 1994 till 2004 och försökte upptäcka trendbrott i nyckeltalens utvecklingar efter det att Star Alliance upprättades. För att förstärka tillförlitligheten av undersökningen använde vi de fyra jämförelseflygbolagen och genomförde en statistisk hypotesprövning för att testa om det förelåg någon signifikant skillnad gällande utvecklingen av lönsamhetsfaktorerna mellan bolagen i Star Alliance och jämförelsebolagen. Resultatet av vår undersökning var att ingen tydlig lönsamhetsförbättring skett för bolagen inom Star Alliance. Vi kunde urskilja att jämförelsebolagen vi använt i undersökningen hade en liknande utveckling av de utvalda lönsamhetsfaktorerna. Eftersom ingen skillnad fanns mellan bolagen i alliansen och de utanför kan man dra slutsatsen att samarbetet inom Star Alliance inte förbättrat lönsamheten för medlemmarna mer än för bolag som inte ingår i någon allians. / The main purpose with our survey was to analyze if strategic alliances within the international airline business have led to increased profitability and strengthened the competitive advantage for the members of the alliance. For our study we focused on Star Alliance and analyzed the development of the selected profitability indicators for the five members that founded it. We also analyzed the same indicators for four airlines that for the time period of the investigation were not members of a strategic alliance. These four airlines were used for purpose of comparison. Our selection was made on the basis that there were these five airlines that founded the alliance and that Star Alliance was the first of its kind. The selection of the four airlines of comparison was made on the basis that these four airlines, for the studied time period, were not members of a strategic alliance. We made the study by collecting information from the airlines annual reports for the years 1994 to 2004 and tried to discover any kind of differences for the time before and after the alliance was founded. To increase the credibility of the study we made a statistic hypothesis test to detect if there were any significant differences, regarding the profitability indicators and the competitive advantages, between the airlines within Star Alliance and the airlines of comparison. The result of our study was that no legible improvement could be proven for the airlines that founded Star Alliance. We could detect that the comparison airlines we used for the survey had a similar development regarding the chosen profitability indicators and the competitive advantages. When no differences could be proven between these airlines, we drew the conclusion that the members in Star Alliance had not improved the studied indicators, to any greater extent than the airlines that were not members of a strategic alliance.

香港以自由貿易港口聞名全世界，事實上自飛機普及之後，航空業也成為香港最重要的服務貿易產業。但由於腹地狹小，到八○年代中期前，全港本地向來只有國泰航空壟斷市場。之後帶有濃厚中資色彩的港龍航空成立後，卻又因香港政府的政策限制而只能以中國市場為主，無法跟國泰航空競爭。 二○○三年中國與香港簽署「更緊密經濟合作夥伴關係安排」(CEPA)之後，放寬香港各項服務貿易產業進入中國大陸市場的規定，香港航空業雖能以獨資方式在中國大陸經營，但最主要的國泰航空卻未採用。本文研究目的即為研究CEPA放寬航空業在中國大陸投資限制後，香港航空業選擇與中國航空業組織策略聯盟的動機與過程。其他香港本地或兩岸的航空公司見狀，是否可能跟進，出現更多航空的策略聯盟，與對現今世界的三大航空聯盟的固有版圖下，是否又有另一波新的氣象。 / Hong Kong is well known for the area of free trade economy, the industries of trade in services, aviation industry is the most important representative of industries in Hong Kong. However, only the Cathay Pacific Airlines is registered and based on Hong Kong, supported by the government of HK, which was colonized of U.K, even though the establishment of Dragon Airline in HK in 1985, its business was constrained by government that shift the main market to Mainland China. The research purpose is setting to since Hong Kong has been signed the “ Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement “ with Mainland China in 2003, while Hong Kong was facing the economy downturn during SARS. China government loosened the restrictions in investing law of Aviation industry to foreign investors as only Hong Kong and Macau. The Hong Kong Airlines company, Cathay Pacific Airlines chose the strategy of strategic alliance cooperating with Chinese Airlines companies, the continuing influences to other Hong Kong, Chinese and Taiwanese Airlines whether they would like to adapt the same theory consisting strategic alliance each other.

This work {\clqq}Multinational companies in air transport{\crqq} is focused on existence of multinational companies in segment of public air transport. The work is focused on appearance of multinational companies in the air transport or more precisely on analysis of strategic airline alliances in term of its multinational character. Analysis of two multinational airlines, members of two different strategic airline alliances and their confrontation on the basis of services provided to customers is the principal aim of this work. Two airlines of world signification and establishing members of two different alliances, French Air France and German Lufthansa, were chosen for this work. These two airlines were advises in three fields: destination offer, fleet and general services provided to customers.