Die aktuelle Diskussion um die Novellierung der deutschen Pressefusionskontrolle macht deutlich, welche Relevanz medienökonomische Fragestellungen haben. Was jedoch bei dieser Diskussion häufig vernachlässigt wird, ist die intensive Betrachtung der Ökonomischen Besonderheiten von...

Within the last three years, Google has acquired YouTube and DoubleClick and has attempted to control part of Yahoo!'s search advertising business. Two of the deals have not raised antitrust concerns by competition authorities. I review these deals with a focus on consumer welfare. Consumers are...

We review the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office Germany) decision on the proposed merger between Springer and ProSiebenSat.1 from an economic point of view. In doing so, it is not our goal to analyse whether the controversial decision by the Bundeskar-tellamt has been correct or flawed...

The objective of this paper is to discuss and compare the role that different constituencies play in US and EU procedures for merger control. We describe the main constituencies (both internal and external) involved in merger control in both jurisdictions and discuss how a typical merger case...

Advances in competition economics as well as in computational and empirical methods have offered the scope for the employment of merger simulation models in merger control procedures during the past almost 15 years. Merger simulation is, nevertheless, still a very young and innovative instrument...

We demonstrate that the popular Farrell-Shapiro-framework (FSF) for the analysis of mergers in oligopolies relies regarding its policy conclusions sensitively on the assumption that rational agents will only propose privately profitable mergers. If this assumption held, a positive external...

This paper applies an intuitive approach based on stock market data to a unique dataset of large concentrations during the period 1990-2002 to assess the effectiveness of European merger control. The basic idea is to relate announcement and decision abnormal returns. Under a set of four...

This paper evaluates the welfare consequences of the failing firm doctrine in the EU and US merger laws. I combine an oligopoly model with an 'endogenous valuations' auction model. Thereby, I take into account that, in an oligopoly, a firm's willingness to pay for the assets depends on the...

This paper studies the interaction between the incentives for predation and mergers. I show that the incentive for predation in an oligopoly is limited by the subsequent competition for the prey. This bidding competition is expecially fierce when the prey's assets exert strong negative...

The purpose of this report is to contribute to the analysis of two questions. Should a merger control system take into account efficiency gains from horizontal mergers, and balance these gains against the anti-competitive effects of mergers? If so, how should a system be designed to account for...