merger that occurred by the end of 2015 (the BRF/MRP merger) had any discernable market-power or efficiency effects. To do … counterbalances the price increases induced by the merger. This implies that total consumers' surplus may have grown as a consequence … of the merger …

In current horizontal merger policy in the US and the EU an explicit efficiency defense is allowed. On both sides of …’ potential to harm consumers in the relevant market. Current merger policy is implicitly based on the assumption that rational … managers will only propose privately profitable mergers. In this thesis I will show that the empirical evidence on merger …