Concentration has increased over the last 30 years or so in a variety of industries. This development has raised concern about weakened competition and resulting harm to consumers. Calls for tougher antitrust enforcement have become louder. There is also concern that rising concentration may be...

The dynamic response of prices and mark-ups to economic shocks play a crucial role in macroeconomics. We explore the role that market concentration plays in determining the responsiveness to different shocks. Using a model of oligopolistic competition we show that the sensitivity of prices and...

The FTC's successful challenge of the Staples-Office Depot merger is one of the most important antitrust cases in recent years. Vital to the FTC's success was evidence that prices for office supplies were significantly higher in markets having only one firm operating office supply superstores...

Results from portfolio models for credit risk tell us that loan concentration in certain industry sectors can substantially increase the value-at-risk (VaR). The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether a tractable "infection model" can provide a meaningful estimate of the impact of...

Since the early 1990s an unprecedented process of consolidation has taken place in the banking sector in most industrialised countries raising concern of policymakers that it may reduce access to credit for the small business sector. While most of the existing empirical studies have focused on...

Eine Welle von Fusionen hat die Weltwirtschaft erfasst. Allein die Dimension der bei Großfusionen genannten Summen, die nicht selten das Bruttoinlandsprodukt von Volkswirtschaften übersteigen, führen zu einem erheblichen Maß an Verunsicherung. Dies wird auch in den Überschriften von...