How to Get Away with Merger: Stealth Consolidation and Its Effects on US Healthcare

Thomas G. Wollmann

No 27274, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: US antitrust authorities are only notified of large mergers, so most transactions could escape antitrust scrutiny. I study premerger notification exemptions in the dialysis industry. I find that, in sharp contrast to reportable mergers, exempt ones almost completely avoid enforcement. As a result, exempt mergers increase concentration and reduce healthcare quality, as measured by hospitalization and mortality rates. I then estimate a structural model to simulate the equilibrium response of demand, quality, and enforcement to the elimination of exemptions. I find that the benefits of eliminating exemptions in the dialysis industry far exceed the costs.

JEL-codes: D4 D43 I11 K21 L0 L1 L11 L13 L4 L40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-hea, nep-ind and nep-law
Note: EH IO
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w27274.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27274

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w27274

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().