In a review of “Economics at the FTC,” Farrell et al. (2011) discuss empirical methods FTC economists use to assess the potential price effects of prospective hospital mergers. The primary method is a framework based on proxies for the bargaining power of hospitals that are calculated from...

The importance of merger retrospectives as a way to assess competition policy is well-recognized. Yet there have been few retrospectives – none that we are aware of for any recent merger – that examine the accuracy of the predictions made by economic models used in the antitrust...