Most mergers filed at the enforcement agencies are conglomerate in nature with only minor horizontal overlaps. An enforcement agency may challenge the merger, if any overlap is believed to be adversely affected by the transaction. While the merging firm is entitled to a hearing in federal court,...

Most mergers involve multiple markets. The potential for settlement can vary by the fraction of the overall deal attributable to the markets of concern. (i.e., by the “overlap”). If an antitrust agency challenges a merger having only a small overlap, negotiating a settlement is very likely;...

Government policy is more effective when the enforcement regime is transparent, because the economy benefits from the resulting reduction in transactions costs. The Federal Trade Commission has promoted transparency through a number of formal and informal programs. Examples include detailed...

In this study, merger enforcement at the Federal Trade Commission is shown to be affected by structural variables (the Herfindahl, the change in the Herfindahl, and the number of significant rivals), an entry index, and three evidence variables (hot documents, validated customer complaints, and...

This paper empirically analyzes the Federal Trade Commission's merger enforcement decisions, to supplement the 2004 release of the Horizontal Merger Investigation Data. The study provides insights into the review process for both multi- and single-market mergers. We present concentration-based...

More than ten years after the European merger policy reform, sufficient data has been accumulated to explore the impact of the reform on the difference between the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) merger policy. We expect policies to converge following the EU 2004 reform that...