Mergers
Missing the Forest for the Trees: A Reply to Hovenkamp and Shapiro
The Federal Trade Commission’s now-abandoned 2020 Vertical Merger Guidelines were not some ideal economic document that the FTC foolishly disregarded; rather, they failed spectacularly...
How Will the FTC Evaluate Vertical Mergers?
The Federal Trade Commission’s recent withdrawal of its 2020 vertical merger guidelines is flatly incorrect as a matter of microeconomic theory and is contrary...
Beefing Up Merger Enforcement by Banning Merger Remedies
The unraveling of the T-Mobile/Sprint remedy continues a trend of failed merger consent decrees. One solution, proposed by two antitrust scholars, is to ban...
Why the FTC Should Consider Size in Drug Mergers
Large pharmaceutical firms retain their dominance through size-related advantages in three areas: contracting, marketing and selling, and financing. When reviewing pharmaceutical mergers, the Federal...
How to Tame the Tech Giants: Reverse the Burden of Proof in Merger Reviews
Most tech acquisitions are approved without a hitch, despite growing evidence that they bring little benefit, because regulators are waging an uphill battle to...
Congress’ Antitrust War On China and American Consumers
The latest bills currently debated in Congress regarding Big Tech—the US Innovation and Competition Act that was passed by the Senate this month and...
When Do Users Benefit From Platform Mergers?
A new paper shows that platform mergers can harness network effects at the cost of reducing the platform differentiation that users value.
The societal importance...
The Covid-19 Pandemic Should Not Delay Actions to Prevent Anticompetitive Consolidation in US Health Care Markets
Harvard Business School professor Leemore Dafny lays out potential reforms to assist agencies in halting anticompetitive acquisitions and practices, and to preserve and promote...
More Than 20 Years of Consolidation Have Led to a Dysfunctional Health Care Market
The US health care system is based on markets, which do not function as well as they could, or should. Prices are high and...
Opening the Black Box: The Hidden Costs of Data-Driven Mergers in Health Care
Vertical data-driven mergers between health insurers and drug suppliers may facilitate health insurers’ efforts to discriminate against vulnerable populations, leaving them without meaningful access...
