This paper aims at investigating the impacts of introducing cost asymmetry in horizontal merger analysis. In the … absence of efficiency gains, previous literature states the negative competitive effects of a merger between symmetric firms … those of the merged entity, leading to higher total investments post-merger. Similarly, consumer surplus could be improved …

differential merger outcomes are caused mostly by firms' technology or product market attributes. Furthermore, empirical merger …. We allow the merger responses to vary across firms, even after controlling for regressors, and apply a random …

horizontal merger activity. We propose a theoretically-backed methodological approach to classify mergers that yields more … information on merger types and merger effects, and that can, moreover, distinguish between mergers characterized largely by … approach is that it encompasses the impact of merger events not only on merging firms (custom in the literature), but also on …