This paper looks at whether the standard unilateral effects model can be applied to non-price competition parameters such as innovation. This question arises because competition authorities are intervening in horizontal mergers that are found to give rise to a “significant impediment to...

More than ten years after the European merger policy reform, sufficient data has been accumulated to explore the impact of the reform on the difference between the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) merger policy. We expect policies to converge following the EU 2004 reform that...

We analyze a large merger in the Dutch banking market during the financial crisis using disaggregated data. Based on a merger simulation model, we evaluate merger-induced changes in the interest rates for savings accounts. We find that the merging banks decreased interest rates by 3 to 5 percent...

The compulsory notifications for mergers transactions under the framework of antitrust law aims to remedy anti-competitive harm by blocking or conditionally approving mergers ex ante in conjunction with the deterrence effects. However, such a mechanism brings prominent costs in addition to the...

The growth of Internet access enabled the creation of functions (e.g., e-commerce and search) that were initially convenient but which a small number of firms used to achieve winner-takes-all, through the application of ICTs, network externalities and two-sided markets. They turned themselves...

Many industries are seeing an increase in concentration, leading to a discussion on the effectiveness of horizontal merger enforcement. The policy debate shows that one of the key arguments put forward when supporting potential mergers is the possibility of realization of merger efficiency...

Over the period 2015-2017, the five giant technologically leading firms, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft (GAFAM) acquired 175 companies, from small start-ups to billion dollar deals. By investigating this intense M&A, this paper ambitions a better understanding of the Big Five's...

Critical observers state that current antitrust policies fall short of addressing the wider societal implications of a market economy, inter alia in merger control. The interests of employees in decent wages, merger impacts on the environment, or the pursuit of a governmental industrial policy...

Antitrust populists increasingly call on the government to “break up big tech.” But antitrust enforcers would face heavy evidentiary burdens if they sought to break a company up on the premise that a long-consummated merger was unlawful from the outset and should have been blocked years ago....

This article analyzes endogenous efficiency gains from mergers. It considers oligopolistic homogeneous good markets and duopolistic and triopolistic markets under product differentiation (PD) (quantity and price competition). In a two-stage game, firms invest in cost-reducing innovation with and...