We analyze the bias from predicting merger effects using structural models of price competition when firms actually compete using both price and promotion. We extend the standard merger simulation framework to allow for competition over both price and promotion and ask what happens if we ignore...

We are given a lot of tools, but no warning label on how or when to employ them. Michael Doane (Competition Economics, LLC), Luke Froeb & Steven Tschantz (Vanderbilt University)

In this paper, we characterize adversarial decision-making as a choice between competing interpretations of evidence ("models") constructed by interested parties. We show that if a court cannot perfectly determine which party's model is more likely to have generated the evidence, then...

From a panel data sample of 898 hotel mergers, we find that mergers increase occupancy without reducing capacity. In some regressions, price also appears to increase. These effects are small, but statistically and economically significant. And they occur only in markets with the highest capacity...

When the winner of one auction gains a cost advantage in the next, bids reflect not only the value of winning the auction, but also the value of gaining an incumbent advantage in future auctions. If a larger firm's advantage derives from a cost or product advantage, it has a greater chance of...

As a general proposition, antitrust law is hostile to price discrimination. This hostility appears to derive from a comparison of perfect competition (with no price discrimination) to monopoly (with price discrimination). Importantly, economists have known for some time that some forms of price...

Following merger, an optimal mechanism discriminates against merging bidders with higher reserve prices and by allocating more often towards non-merging bidders. In this setting, we show that mergers always harm the auctioneer, benefit non-merging bidders, can increase total surplus, and have...