Defending a challenged merger on the basis of synergies requires an analysis of the likely pass through to consumers of associated marginal cost reductions. This paper explores the nature and extent of that pass though with differentiated consumer products. Pass-through rates are shown to depend...

Contrary to the suggestion of Williamson (1968), a merger enhancing total social welfare through the creation of substantial efficiencies nevertheless may violate current antitrust law in the United States, which considers only the effects of mergers on consumers. To avoid violating antitrust...

In this paper, we derive estimators of, and closed-form (non-integral) expressions for, the distribution of bids in an extreme value, asymmetric, second-price, private-values auction. In equilibrium, prices (winning bids) and shares (winning probabilities) have a simple monotonic...

This chapter first reviews the economic theory underlying the unilateral competitive effects of mergers, focusing on the Cournot model, commonly applied to homogeneous products; the Bertrand model, commonly applied to differentiated consumer products; and models of auctions and bargaining,...