that would prevent a merger from harming consumers for 1,014 mergers affecting 12,325 antitrust markets scrutinized by the … concerns about the Commission’s merger enforcement being too lax. …

scrutinized by the European Commission between 1995 and 2014. We show that concentration, as measured by the market-specific post-merger … dimension analyzed. Strict past merger enforcement negatively correlates with concentration. Yet, this effect is stronger in the …

scrutinized by the European Commission between 1995 and 2014. We show that concentration, as measured by the market-specific post-merger … dimension analyzed. Strict past merger enforcement negatively correlates with concentration. Yet, this effect is stronger in the …

We investigate the impact of cartel breakdowns on merger activity. Merging information on cartel cases decided by the … European Commission (EC) between 2000 and 2011 with a detailed data set of worldwide merger activity, we find that, first, the … average number of all merger transactions increase by up to 51 percent when comparing the three years before the cartel …

to the merger. We show that a PPO reduces the minimal synergy level necessary to make a merger beneficial for consumers …. It follows that an antitrust authority ignoring existing PPOs when evaluating merger proposals (which reflects the … current EU merger control regime) invites sneaky takeovers: Acquiring firms strategically use PPOs prior to a full merger …