We analyze the optimal policy of an antitrust authority towards horizontal mergers when merger proposals are endogenous … seeks to maximize expected consumer surplus involves discriminating between mergers based on a naive computation of the post-merger … Herfindahl index (over and above the apparent effect of the proposed merger on consumer surplus). We show that the antitrust …

to the merger. We show that a PPO reduces the minimal synergy level necessary to make a merger beneficial for consumers …. It follows that an antitrust authority ignoring existing PPOs when evaluating merger proposals (which reflects the … current EU merger control regime) invites sneaky takeovers: Acquiring firms strategically use PPOs prior to a full merger …

Merger value is frequently evaluated in single market contexts without considering possible gains stemming from firms … multimarket firms create incremental value. We establish a simple theoretical model that determines merger value in a multimarket … firm environment. The model enables us to derive merger values as being independent of post-merger market shares, but …