Research On The Standard Of Consumer Welfare In The Examination Of Business Concentration

The review system of concentration of business operators based on unilateral market encounters many problems in bilateral market,It includes the selection of the examination standard of the system of concentration of business operators in the bilateral market,mainly including the standard of total social welfare,the standard of consumer welfare and the standard of balanced weight welfare.Due to the lack of attention to bilateral market factors and consumer welfare factors in the current law of China,it is of great theoretical value and practical significance to study how to identify consumer welfare standards in the review of concentration of business operators in bilateral markets.As far as unilateral market is concerned,there are some particularities in bilateral market,such as the identification of cross network externalities,the application of SSNIP test method,the analysis of competition effect,and the asymmetry of price structure.The consumer welfare standard should be the review standard or anti-monopoly control standard for the concentration of business operators in the bilateral market.Its content is to take the price standard as the core,supplemented by other factors.In the concentration review of business operators in the bilateral market,it is determined that the consumer welfare standard should follow the three conditions of increasing the total social welfare,maintaining or increasing the consumer welfare and not hindering the market competition efficiency.The behavior of concentration in bilateral market includes horizontal concentration and vertical concentration.It is necessary and feasible to determine the consumer welfare standard in these two types of concentration.In the examination of concentration of business operators,China’s anti-monopoly law enforcement agencies should pay attention to the bilateral market factors and consumer welfare,establish the consumer welfare standard as the examination standard,combine the characteristics of the bilateral market and the specific situation of the platform enterprises,and carry out anti-monopoly examination on the behaviors of concentration of business operators in the bilateral market.