In 1997 the Federal Trade Commission was granted a preliminary injunction on a proposed merger between Staples and Office Depot
The FTC was able to convince the federal district court that allowing the merger would create the potential for anticompetitive prices since it would give the newly merged company a 75% market share and would only leave Office Max as the remaining office supply superstore. Critically evaluate the FTC's use of "office supply superstores" as the relevant market.
The problem with narrowly defining the relevant market as only including office supply superstores ignores the obvious fact that there are large numbers of stores that are not office supply superstores that still compete with Staples, Office Depot and Office Max. Included in this list would be stores like Walmart, Sam's Club, Best Buy not to mention the hundreds of small independent office supply stores all across the country.
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If people in Pottsville purchase 20 percent more pickles today than they did in 1980,even though the price of pickles has increased 40 percent since 1980, the demand for pickles in Pottsville
A) does not obey the law of demand. B) has changed since 1980. C) is relatively elastic. D) is relatively inelastic. E) is unit elastic.
The term "brain drain" refers to
A) the decreased quality of the college-educated workforce. B) highly educated individuals who leave developing countries for high-income countries. C) the negative impact on brain function of an individual's overinvestment in human capital. D) the diminishing returns to studying for an exam.
In deciding whether to operate in the short run, the firm must consider the relationship between price and
A) total cost. B) average variable cost. C) total fixed cost. D) the number of buyers.
The theory of regulatory behavior that suggests that regulators must consider the demands of legislators, consumers, and members of the regulated agency is called
A) the capture theory. B) share-the-gains, share-the-pains theory. C) the natural theory. D) the creative theory.