Concentration Screens for Horizontal Mergers

Volker Nocke and Michael Whinston

No 27533, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Concentration-based screens for horizontal mergers, such as those employed in the US DOJ and FTC Horizontal Merger Guidelines, play a central role in merger analysis. However, the basis for these screens, in both form and level, remains unclear. We show that there is both a theoretical and an empirical basis for focusing solely on the change in the Herfindahl index, and ignoring its level, in screening mergers for whether their unilateral effects will harm consumers. We also argue, again both theoretically and empirically, that the levels at which the presumptions currently are set may allow mergers to proceed that cause consumer harm.

JEL-codes: L0 L4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com and nep-ind
Note: IO
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w27533.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Concentration Screens for Horizontal Mergers (2020)
Working Paper: Concentration Screens for Horizontal Mergers (2020)
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:27533

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w27533

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 ().