Tomaso Duso will present his empirical study of EU merger control, done jointly with Paula Affeldt, Klaus Gugler and Joanna Piechucka. They analyze more than 1000 mergers scrutinized by the European Commission between 1980 and 2019. One finding from their study is that they are concerned about the Commission’s merger enforcement being too lax.
Time: May 24 2022, 12.15-13.30
Venue: Room E209/210, Norwegian School of Economics
This is a joint seminar with Center for Business Economics (CBE) at NHH
Abstract: Worldwide, the overwhelming majority of large horizontal mergers are cleared by antitrust authorities unconditionally. The presumption seems to be that efficiencies from these mergers are sizeable. We calculate the compensating efficiencies that would prevent a merger from harming consumers for 1,014 mergers affecting 12,325 antitrust markets scrutinized by the European Commission between 1990 and 2018. Compensating efficiencies seem too large to be achievable for many mergers. Barriers to entry and the number of firms active in the market are the most important factors determining their size. We highlight concerns about the Commission’s merger enforcement being too lax.