The new merger guidelines of the department of justice

1984 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucile S. Keyes
Keyword(s):  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Merger Guidelines

scholarly journals Judicial Response to the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-79
Author(s):  
Carl Shapiro ◽  
Howard Shelanski
Keyword(s):  
Federal Trade Commission ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Market Concentration ◽  
Horizontal Merger ◽  
Average Increase ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Merger Guidelines ◽  
Direct Competition ◽  
The Government ◽  
The U.S

AbstractWe study how the courts have responded to the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines issued by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. Looking at decided cases, we find that both the government and merging parties rely on the 2010 Guidelines in presenting their cases, each side respectively arguing that it should win if the court properly follows them . The 2010 Guidelines had the strongest effect on the case law in the area of unilateral effects, where a number of courts have embraced them in ways that clearly depart from earlier decisions. The case law now exhibits much greater receptivity to a government showing that the merger will lead to higher prices simply due to the loss of direct competition between the two merging firms. The courts also have followed the 2010 Guidelines by more willingly defining markets around targeted customers. We do not detect any effect on decided cases of the higher concentration thresholds found in the 2010 Guidelines. Both the average pre-merger level of market concentration and the average increase in market concentration alleged by the government in litigated cases to date declined after 2010 .

Deregulating antitrust policy

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 871-890 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Stelzner ◽  
Mayuri Chaturvedi
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Mergers And Acquisitions ◽  
Market Power ◽  
Market Concentration ◽  
Antitrust Policy ◽  
Horizontal Merger ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Economic Variables ◽  
Merger Guidelines ◽  
Half Century

Abstract Starting in the 1980s, market concentration began to rise dramatically decreasing competition and increasing market power for the firms that remain. Such developments have important effects on a number of economic variables such as the efficiency of our economy and income inequality. Thus, it is important to ask: how has the administration of antitrust policy changed over the last half century? To shed more light on these important questions, we explore both change in policy outline by the Department of Justice in its Horizontal Merger Guidelines and change in administrative actions looking at both secondary requests for mergers and acquisitions of different sizes, and pre, post and change in Herfindahl–Hirschman Index in mergers and acquisitions contested by the Department of Justice through the courts.

Input market definition under department of Justice Merger Guidelines

1989 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard S. Higgins ◽  
William F. Shughart
Keyword(s):  
Market Definition ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Merger Guidelines

scholarly journals Vertical Mergers and Input Foreclosure Lessons from the AT&T/Time Warner Case

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Economic Analysis ◽  
Federal Trade Commission ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Merger Guidelines ◽  
Vertical Merger ◽  
Practical Guide ◽  
Economic Expert ◽  
Time Warner ◽  
Vertical Mergers ◽  
The U.S

AbstractThis article offers a practical guide to analyzing vertical mergers using the general approach to input foreclosure and raising rivals’ costs that is described in the 2020 Vertical Merger Guidelines that were issued by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. The step-by-step analysis described here draws lessons from how that theory of harm played out in the lone vertical merger case that has been litigated by the antitrust agencies in recent decades: the 2018 challenge by the Department of Justice to the merger between AT&T and Time Warner. I testified in court as the DOJ’s economic expert in that case. I explain here how to quantify the increase in rivals’ costs and the elimination of double marginalization that are caused by a vertical merger and how to evaluate their net effect on downstream customers. I also explain how this economic analysis fits into the three-step burden-shifting approach that the courts apply to mergers under Section 7 of the Clayton Act. Based on my experience in the AT&T/Time Warner case, I identify a number of shortcomings of the 2020 Vertical Merger Guidelines.

scholarly journals The New Vertical Merger Guidelines: Muddying the Waters

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Salinger
Keyword(s):  
Federal Trade Commission ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Potential Harm ◽  
Merger Guidelines ◽  
Vertical Merger ◽  
Potential Competition ◽  
Dominant Firms ◽  
Static Pricing ◽  
Vertical Mergers

AbstractThe new U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission Vertical Merger Guidelines focus on how vertical mergers are likely to affect static pricing incentives. While vertical mergers can create incentives to increase prices, they can also provide incentives to decrease prices. Which of the possible outcomes is likely to occur depends on details that are generally difficult to measure. Potential competition between dominant firms, the theory of potential harm to competition that the 1984 Department of Justice Merger Guidelines stressed, remains a more compelling rationale for blocking vertical mergers than the likely effect on static pricing incentives.

Market Definition: Implementing the Department of Justice Merger Guidelines

1996 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 665-690
Author(s):  
David L. Kaserman ◽  
Hans Zeisel
Keyword(s):  
Economic Research ◽  
Market Definition ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Demand And Supply ◽  
Merger Guidelines ◽  
Empirical Level

My lament is that this battle on market definitions … has received virtually no attention from us economists. Except for a casual flirtation with cross elasticities of demand and supply, the determination of markets has remained an undeveloped area of economic research at either the theoretical or empirical level.

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