The objective of this Paper is to investigate the determinants of EU merger control decisions. We consider a sample of 164 EU merger control decisions and evaluate the anti-competitive consequences of these mergers from the reaction of the stock market price of competitors to the merging firms....

We study the enforcement of competition policy against collusion under Leniency Programs, which give reduced fines to firms revealing information to the Antitrust Authority. Such programs give firms an incentive to break collusion, but may also have a pro-collusive effect, since they decrease...

This paper offers a Schumpeterian view of the Great Merger Movement in the American manufacturing industries, which occurred from 1895 to 1904. From this perspective, the Great Merger Movement was a response to competitive pressures associated with a number of significant technological...

We extend the literature on exclusive dealing by allowing the incumbent and the potential entrant to merge. This uncovers new effects. First, exclusive deals can be used to improve the incumbent’s bargaining position in the merger negotiation. Second, the incumbent finds it easier to elicit...

We propose a simple theory of predatory pricing, based on scale economies and sequential buyers (or markets). The entrant (or prey) needs to reach a critical scale to be successful. The incumbent (or predator) is ready to make losses on earlier buyers so as to deprive the prey of the scale it...

An antitrust authority deters collusion using fines and a leniency program. Unlike in most of the earlier literature, our firms have imperfect cumulative evidence of the collusion. That is, cartel conviction is not automatic if one firm reports: reporting makes conviction only more likely, the...

In most jurisdictions, antitrust fines are based on affected commerce rather than on collusive profits, and in some others, caps on fines are introduced based on total firm sales rather than on affected commerce. We uncover a number of distortions that these policies generate, propose simple...

We examine aspects of how new technology may be transferred to firms that use it in a final product market. Should technology transfer take place to a single firm or to more than one, and should it happen gradually or at once? How do the incompleteness of contracts and the nature of product...

In this chapter, we review some recent work on public intervention in economic environments where firms undertake investments in research or in physical assets, and then select appropriate business practices to extract profits from the outcomes of the investment process. Public policies may take...

We study the impact of legal principles on the design and the effectiveness of antitrust fines. Modern antitrust enforcement obeys four basic legal principles: punishments should fit the crime, proportionality, bankruptcy considerations, and minimum fines. We integrate these principles into a...