We study welfare effects of horizontal mergers under a successive oligopoly model and find that downstream mergers can … conditions for a reduction in input prices and welfare-improving horizontal mergers under a general demand function. Qualitative … nature of our findings remains unchanged for upstream mergers. …

reduce costs through either internal investment in build- ing capital or through mergers. The model, which we solve … computationally, allows firms to invest or propose mergers according to the relative profitability of these strategies. An antitrust … authority is able to block mergers at some cost. We examine the optimal policy when the antitrust authority can commit to a …

It has been suggested that mergers, by increasing concentration, raise incentives to invest and hence are pro …-competitive. To study the effects of mergers, we rewrite a game with simultaneous price and cost-reducing investment choices as one …