This paper analyses the profitability of horizontal mergers in a Stackelberg model and their impact on welfare when there is uncertainty about the marginal costs of the newly merged firms. The authors consider that the merging firms decide their production strategy knowing the actual value of...

Some path-breaking work on mergers takes efficiency gains for granted, or assumes that firms have perfect knowledge when taking merger decisions. In practice, firms and competition authorities cannot know exact future efficiency gains, prior to merger consummation. This paper analyzes horizontal...

In an industry where regulated firms interact with unregulated suppliers, we investigate the welfare effects of a merger between regulated firms when cost synergies are uncertain before the merger and their realization becomes private information of the merged firm. The optimal merger policy...