The evolution of US merger control policy – part 2: 1974-2013

Magdalena Katarzyna Kakol ()
Additional contact information
Magdalena Katarzyna Kakol: Maria Curie-Sklodowska University

Ekonomia i Prawo, 2014, vol. 13, issue 3, 417-430

Abstract: The aim of the study is to present the changes in US merger control policy at different stages of development of competition theories and views on pro- and anti-competitive effects of mergers (especially Harvard, Chicago, and Post-Chicago Schools of Competition). The research methods used in the study include literature review as well as the in-depth analysis of US legislation, antitrust agencies' enforcement policy and federal courts' adjudication practice with focus on changes in the economic analysis of mergers and their impact on market competition. This part of the study covers the period from the mid 1970s to the present time and comprises two stages of the development of US policy towards mergers. In the 1980s the Chicago School theories, efficiency primacy and minimum intervention principle prevailed in US antitrust policy. From the 1990s under the influence of Post-Chicago approach which no longer assumes that markets work perfectly the antitrust agencies have been more eager to intervene to block some (even vertical) mergers with potential anticompetitive effects (though the level of this intervention could be hardly compared with that of the 1960s). US merger enforcement policy has become more interdisciplinary with a more flexible approach to economic analysis as regards applied methodology which should be tailored to each transaction and supported by empirical evidence. Apart from consumer welfare its priority is protecting competitive process in the market.

Keywords: mergers; merger control policy; US antitrust; theory of competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K21 L2 L4 N11 N12 N81 N82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/EiP.2014.030 (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:cpn:umkeip:v:13:y:2014:i:3:p:417-430

Access Statistics for this article

Ekonomia i Prawo is currently edited by Barbara Polszakiewicz and Jerzy Boehlke

More articles in Ekonomia i Prawo from Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Miroslawa Buczynska ().