While the Merger Guidelines structure represents the standard approach to merger analysis in the US, economists have proposed methods to dispense with market definition and estimate the competitive effect directly. In this note, we argue that market definition is necessary to evaluate the...

Farrell and Shapiro’s Upward Pressure on Price (UPP) structure is advanced as a technique to screen mergers in differentiated product markets. Lacking an ability to link their analysis with experiences from relevant markets, Farrell and Shapiro propose to assume substantial efficiencies, and...

Farrell and Shapiro’s Upward Pressure on Price (UPP) framework is an innovative and elegant technique designed to evaluate mergers in differentiated product markets. The authors advance their approach primarily as a screen for unilateral effects cases, although others suggest that UPP might be...