Competition in the Us Beer Industry : Assessing the Impact on Prices of the 2013 Merger & Divestiture Event between Major Brewers

This paper evaluates the impact on prices of the 2013 merger between Anheuser-Busch InBev(ABI) and Grupo Modelo and the associated court-required divestiture of Grupo Modelo’s US business to Constellation. We use difference-in-differences and event study regressions to capture firms' price changes due to this merger/divestiture event. Our empirical analysis reveals merger/divestiture-induced increases in prices. This finding calls into question whether the remedy imposed by the court for approving this merger/divestiture event was sufficient to maintain pre-event competition in the US beer market