The Effect of Mergers on Consumer Prices: Evidence from Five Mergers on the Enforcement Margin

Orley Ashenfelter and Daniel Hosken

Journal of Law and Economics, 2010, vol. 53, issue 3, 417 - 466

Abstract: In this paper we propose a method to evaluate the effectiveness of U.S. horizontal merger policy and apply it to the study of five recently consummated consumer products mergers. We select the mergers from those that, from the public record, seem most likely to be problematic. Thus, we estimate an upper bound on the likely price effect of completed mergers. Our study employs retail scanner data and uses familiar panel data program evaluation procedures to measure price changes. Our results indicate that four of the five mergers resulted in some increases in consumer prices, while the fifth merger had little effect.

Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (93)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/605092 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/605092 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

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:ucp:jlawec:doi:10.1086/605092

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Law and Economics from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().