It is striking that economists in particular firmly believe in the benefits of rule-binding, even though this belief runs counter to the standard assumption of economic theory that we humans are self-interested and therefore extremely resourceful when it comes to circumventing inconvenient...

I study the predictability of the EC’s merger decision procedure before and after the 2004 merger policy reform based on a dataset covering all affected markets of mergers with an official decision documented by DG Comp between 1990 and 2014. Using the highly flexible, non-parametric random...

We study the evolution of the EC's merger decision procedure over the first 25 years of European competition policy. Using a novel dataset constructed at the level of the relevant markets and containing all merger cases over the 1990-2014 period, we evaluate how consistently arguments related to...

We investigate patterns in common ownership networks between firms that are active in the US pharmaceutical industry for the period 2004-2014. Our main findings are that “brand firms” — i.e. firms that have R&D capabilities and launch new drugs — exhibit relatively dense common ownership...

An increasing body of empirical evidence is documenting trends toward rising concentration, profits, and markups in many industries around the world since the 1980s. Two major criticisms of these studies is that concentration and market shares are poorly measured at the national industry level...

Assortment decisions are key strategic instruments for firms responding to local market conditions. We assess this claim by studying the effect of a national merger between two large Dutch supermarket chains on prices and on the depth as well as composition of assortment. We adopt a...

We study the effect of a merger in a dynamic high-technology industry -- the videogame market -- which is characterized by frequent introduction of new products. To assess the impact of the merger between two large specialist retailers in the UK, we perform a difference-in-differences analysis...

Previous work has shown that state-level antitrust enforcement activity may have impacts on entry and relocation behavior by U.S. firms. Significant state-level antitrust activity may be an indicator of a perceived adverse business environment and it is found to deter establishment entry,...

Common ownership - where two firms are at least partially owned by the same investor - and its impact on product market outcomes has recently drawn a lot of attention from scholars and practitioners alike. Theoretical and empirical researchsuggests that common ownership can lead to higher...

I study the predictability of the EC's merger decision procedure before and after the 2004 merger policy reform based on a dataset covering all affected markets of mergers with an official decision documented by DG Comp between 1990 and 2014. Using the highly flexible, non-parametric random...