market. Using detailed matched employer-employee data, we analyze how firm takeovers and product market competition are … ownership change, in particular when product market competition is weak. Further, increased competition reduces the gender wage …

In their merger control, EU and the US have considered symmetric size distribution (cost structure) of firms to be a … factor potentially leading to collusion. We show that forbidding mergers leading to symmetric market structures can induce … mergers leading to asymmetric market structures with higher risk of collusion, when firms face indivisible costs of collusion …

competition in the presence of antitrust enforcement is considered. Firms observe only their own production levels and a common …

that some welfare increasing mergers will be blocked. This is optimal, if the relevant alternative to the merger is another … strategically delegate to its competition authority a welfare standard with a bias in favour of consumers. A consumer bias means … enhance welfare even though it blocks some welfare increasing mergers when the relevant alternative is the status quo. …

unprofitable and anti-competitive merger, when alternative mergers are profitable and pro-competitive …In a framework where mergers are mutually excluding, I show that firms pursue anti- rather than (alternative) pro …-competitive mergers. Potential outsiders to anti-competitive mergers refrain from pursuing pro-competitive mergers if the positive …