Thank you for this thought provoking paper.
I enjoy reading it, I learned a lot but I feel like it would be very helpful to create a new title at the end of it entitled “policies implication” which some very concrete steps for competition authorities to take.

Thanks again
Thibault

Dear Vicente,

Thank you very much for your comments. Certainly the decision on Kroton/Estácio merger should be mentioned. We also would like to exploit the distance learning market (which had an impressive growth in the last decade, even more than the “in class” courses), but we don’t have enough data to do a similar analysis, we are working on this.

Best regards,
Carolina

Dear Maria Fernanda,

It is very enriching see other perspectives to the paper, it brings some new questions, especially from the policy perspective. Please see my answers below.

1. There is no single definition of conglomerate merger, but it is usually referred to mergers that are nor horizontal neither vertical. In fact, we did not go further with other examples than market extension mergers, we will improve the literature on this issue.
2. The main policy implication is that not just horizontal and vertical mergers need to be carefully evaluated by competition authorities. It does not mean that conglomerate mergers always have similar effects to other types of mergers. But they also need a deep analysis as horizontal and vertical mergers.
3. Actually it is a very good question and I don’t have the answer. My thought is that we need other examples to see if results would be similar. An issue that needs to be exploited is if results would be different in cases in which there is no (expected) standardization of products. It is not proved in the paper that results are driven by standardization (which is another issue to be exploited), but it might be the case.

Thank you very much for your interesting and helpful comments.

Kind regards,
Carolina

Thank you for the very interesting paper.

Here are some comments, in a perspective of a lawyer, that might be useful for your work or at least give you further perspectives on how the extent of your work to other fields:
1. I missed in the article the definition of conglomerates. I know that the concept is broad and well-know, however, I think would be nice to have an explanation on why do you focus on this type of mergers, and not the others? How conglomerates are different from other market structures?

2. Is there any policy implication from your work? Can you give any guidelines to authorities in relation to what to do in case of conglomerate mergers?

3. How much do you think you can expand your conclusions to other countries or sectors? Do you think that countries that have long-traditions on high-level of educations would present similar results?

I understand that you have the economic background, and I was honestly impressed with you work, but these are some perspectives as a lawyer/policy maker that can encourage you to open the view on the topic.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Kindly,
Maria Fernanda

Dear Maria Alejandra Madi,

Thank you very much for your relevant and interesting questions. I will do some research on these issues and include a discussion on the paper.

Dear Mary Catherine, thank you very much, I’ve already found the paper and really seems close related to mine.

I would like you to further analyse

1. which are the controversies that have arisen among competition economists and competition law experts as of the practice applied
to conglomerate mergers.
2. which are the different views on this contoversies among the competition authorities, mainly the Brazilian Comeptition Authority (CADE).