We investigate the impact of multimarket contact on market power. We analyze this question in the U.S. airline industry where concomitant cross-market interactions among competing carriers abound. Collecting data from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics and exploiting a methodology that allows us to compute the Lerner index (proxy for market power), we find that multimarket contact between carriers has a U-shaped effect on market power. This suggests that there exists a threshold level of multimarket contact for carriers that compete across multiple markets to recognize their interdependences and begin to mutually forbear.

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多市场联系和市场力量对美国航空业的影响

我们研究了多市场联系对市场势力的影响。我们在美国航空业分析了这个问题，因为竞争航空公司之间的跨市场互动比比皆是。通过收集美国运输统计局的数据并利用一种计算勒纳指数（市场力量的代表）的方法，我们发现承运人之间的多市场联系对市场力量产生 U 形效应。这表明，对于跨多个市场竞争的运营商来说，多市场接触存在一个门槛水平，以认识到它们的相互依赖并开始相互克制。