In 1989, Barry Harris & Joseph Simons developed a quantitative method to implement the Horizontal Merger Guidelines' hypothetical monopolist test with a market-level “critical loss” analysis. The appeal of Harris & Simons' framework is that it created a simple, intuitive approach to...

The 1997 Merger Guidelines appeared to significantly expand the role of efficiency considerations in merger analysis. However, it is possible that the revision simply memorialized existing policy and thus served more to improve transparency than reform policy. By combining an existing review of...

The 2010 Merger Guidelines define an improved road-map for merger analysis. Evidence is elevated to a position of prominence in Section II of the revised draft, although we note that the presentation lacks the necessary context. Economic theory now plays a larger role in the analysis, a change...

The 2010 Merger Guidelines appear to elevate game theoretic models of competitive concerns to the primary concern of merger policy, while reducing the importance of market definition. Although situations in which this change makes some sense exist, we observe that, as a practical matter, market...

Natural experiments may serve as a test of an economic theory that purports to evaluate the competitive effects of a proposed transaction and therefore play an important role in merger analysis. Using aggregate reviews of Federal Trade Commission merger studies, it is possible to identify a...

This paper presents an analysis of merger enforcement at the Federal Trade Commission under the 1992 Merger Guidelines. Econometric analysis suggests that enforcement decisions are best predicted with the Herfindahl when the relevant theory is collusion and the number of significant rivals when...

The staff at an antitrust agency can focus on either coordinated interaction (collusion) or unilateral effects theories when investigating a proposed merger. This paper statistically models whether the choice of economic theory materially affects the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) enforcement...

In merger analysis, ease of entry, when present, trumps competitive concerns and allows market behavior, such as a merger, to proceed unchallenged. Thus, entry plays a key role in every antitrust study. That said, it is surprising that entry analysis is inconsistently defined, both in the courts...

The modern Merger Guidelines have controlled merger policy for over three decades. Economic theory has evolved (and continues to evolve) and revisions of the Merger Guidelines have integrated some of these considerations into the merger review methodology. This paper tabulates and evaluates...

The rise of unilateral effects analysis, as quantified by merger simulation, creates the potential to balance anticompetitive effects and efficiencies and improve the merger review process. Unfortunately, sophisticated economic models impose a tight structure on the analytical process, one that...