Mergers
The Real Dish on the T-Mobile/Sprint Merger: A Disastrous Deal From the Start
The Trump-era DOJ’s decision to allow the T-Mobile/Sprint merger will go down as one of the worst merger-enforcement mistakes in decades. This merger will...
The Irony in Senator Klobuchar’s Antitrust Bill
The antitrust reform bill recently proposed by Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) purports to fix problems caused by antitrust courts’ reliance on “inaccurate economic assumptions.”...
Reviewing Facebook’s Mergers Could Have Negative Ripple Effects
How the pre-merger notification regime came about and why we should be careful about discouraging useful mergers.
December 2020 was an extraordinary period in US...
When Big Tech Firms Buy Startups, Antitrust Enforcers Should Take Notice
A frequent argument made in favor of allowing Big Tech firms to acquire smaller firms is that permissive merger policy promotes innovative entry. A...
Amazon-Owned Movie Theaters: the Next Step in Entertainment Industry Consolidation
Amazon is in talks to buy AMC Theaters, whose business model was jeopardized by the coronavirus pandemic. Other streaming companies, such as Disney and...
With the Court Approval of the T-Mobile/Sprint Merger, the Dominant Doctrine in Antitrust Has Jumped the Shark
New York Judge Victor Marrero allowed two major mobile companies to merge in an already concentrated telecom industry, ensuring that prices will rise and...
"The Lack of Competition Has Deprived American Workers of $1.25 Trillion of Income"
French economist Thomas Philippon, author of the recent The Great Reversal, explains how Europe got to be better at free markets than the US and how...
High-Priced Acquisitions of Tech Startups Do Not Always Stimulate More Innovation
What seems to be a big reward to innovation ultimately reduces the incentive to innovate, argues a new Stigler Center working paper by Krishna...
Vertical Media Mergers Are a Serious Threat to Freedom of Speech
Antitrust regulators should stop mergers where a firm owning the means of transmission acquires a provider of content. The people that own the pipes...
The Cost of America’s Oligopoly Problem
An innovative new study finds substantial, increasing deadweight losses resulting from oligopolistic behavior and points to the important role that startup acquisitions—particularly by large...
