Existing literature on the airline industry has been largely based on US airline markets due to data availability. The rest of the world, including China?s airline markets, have received relatively little attention. This thesis discusses in some detail the evolution of China's airline industry, current position and the problems faced by the Chinese carriers. In particular, it explores in depth the reasons behind the 2002 airline consolidations, which have brought about many significant changes in China's airline markets. Unlike mergers in developed countries, which might have been assessed and their effects estimated by antitrust authorities before being granted antitrust immunity, the airline mergers that swept China's airline industry in 2002 occurred with no antitrust challenge. This provides researchers with a good opportunity to study market power issues in this market. Using monthly average airfare information for China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines from 2002 to 2004, the actual airfares paid by passengers were found to have significantly fallen in the post-merger period in most Chinese city-pair markets, indicating that competition was still relatively strong and that the major airlines did not seriously abuse any market power gained from the mergers. Based on a reduced form airfare equation in a panel context, the presence of Hainan Airlines appears to have had the competitive effect of suppressing the airfares charged by China Eastern and China Southern. One salient feature of China?s airline industry in the post-merger period is the greatly enhanced multimarket contact of these two major airlines. However, my finding of a negative effect of multimarket contact on airfares in China's airline markets rejects the mutual forbearance hypothesis. In the absence of an effective antitrust law, both fare wars and price collusion have been pervasive in China?s airline markets, causing concern for both airlines and consumers. Both types of conduct tend to be short-lived, but the 'competition then collusion' patterns seem to be repetitive. This observation can be explained in two ways. On the one hand, divergent interests in a particular market at any given time have made it difficult for collusive agreements to be effectively implemented and maintained. On the other hand, the lack of any antitrust intervention has allowed the carriers in China to reach price agreements through overt communication any time they thought it might be commercially helpful. Therefore, both the industrial collusion and price war cycles have not lasted for long periods of time. Using a probit model that estimates the engagement of China Eastern and China Southern in price wars and price collusion, it is found that concentration in both airports and routes did not play any important part in the occurrence of either fare wars or collusion. Multimarket contact had the effect of intensifying and spreading competition in some markets, with no obvious effects of promoting price cooperation. Although the airline mergers overall appear not to have caused seriously anticompetitive consequences, undoubtedly because most carriers were keen to expand in China's fast-growing airline markets, the underlying potential for collusive conduct still demands that a comprehensive antitrust law be adopted to control price-fixing activities, and to stop threats to competition once the airline industry reaches maturity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/269110 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Zhang, Yahua |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | EN-AUS |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Yahua Zhang 2007 |
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