Remedy for Now but Prohibit for Tomorrow: The Deterrence Effects of Merger Policy Tools

Pedro Barros (), Joseph A. Clougherty () and Jo Seldeslachts ()

No 6437, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Antitrust policy involves not just the regulation of anti-competitive behavior, but also an important deterrence effect. Neither scholars nor policymakers have fully researched the deterrence effects of merger policy tools, as they have been unable to empirically measure these effects. We consider the ability of different antitrust actions – Prohibitions, Remedies, and Monitorings – to deter firms from engaging in mergers. We employ cross-jurisdiction/pan-time data on merger policy to empirically estimate the impact of antitrust actions on future merger frequencies. We find merger prohibitions to lead to decreased merger notifications in subsequent periods, and remedies to weakly increase future merger notifications: in other words, prohibitions involve a deterrence effect but remedies do not.

Keywords: antitrust; deterrence; merger policy; remedies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K21 L40 L49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ind, nep-law and nep-reg
Date: 2007-08
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP6437.asp (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: Remedy for Now but Prohibit for Tomorrow: The Deterrence Effects of Merger Policy Tools (2007)
Working Paper: Remedy for Now but Prohibit for Tomorrow: The Deterrence Effects of Merger Policy Tools (2007)
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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6437

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP6437.asp

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers
Address: Centre for Economic Policy Research, 53--56 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DG
Series data maintained by ().