Generating Evidence to Guide Merger Enforcement

Orley Ashenfelter, Daniel Hosken and Matthew Weinberg
Additional contact information
Daniel Hosken: Federal Trade Commission
Matthew Weinberg: Federal Trade Commission

No 1137, Working Papers from Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies.

Abstract: The challenge of effective merger enforcement is tremendous. U.S. antitrust agencies must, by statute, quickly forecast the competitive effects of mergers that occur in virtually every sector of the economy to determine if mergers can proceed. Surprisingly, given the complexity of the regulators task, there is remarkably little empirical evidence on the effects of mergers to guide regulators. This paper describes the necessity of retrospective analysis of past mergers in building an empirical basis for antitrust enforcement, and provides guidance on the key measurement issues researchers confront in estimating the price effects of mergers. We also describe how evidence from merger retrospectives can be used to evaluate the economic models used to predict the competitive effects of mergers.

Keywords: Corporate mergers; antitrust enforcement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D42 G34 K21 L12 L40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (37)

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Working Paper: Generating Evidence to Guide Merger Enforcement (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pri:cepsud:183

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