About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

168 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1941 (2019-2020)
The Dichotomous Treatment of Efficiencies in Horizontal Mergers: Too Much? Too Little? Getting It Right

handle is hein.journals/pnlr168 and id is 1969 raw text is: ARTICLE THE DICHOTOMOUS TREATMENT OF EFFICIENCIES IN HORIZONTAL MERGERS: TOO MUCH? TOO LITTLE? GETTING IT RIGHT NANCY L. ROSEt & JONATHAN SALLETtt The extent to which horizontal mergers deliver competitive benefits that offset any potentialfor competitive harm is a critical issue of antitrust enforcement. This Article evaluates economic analyses of merger efficiencies and concludes that a substantial body of work casts doubt on their presumptive existence and magnitude. That has two significant implications. First, the current methods used by the federal antitrust agencies to determine whether to investigate a horizontal merger likely rests on an overly-optimistic view of the existence of cognizable efficiencies, which we believe has the effect ofjustifying market-concentration thresholds that are likely too lax. Second, criticisms of the current treatment of efficiencies as too demanding-for example, that antitrust agencies and reviewing courts require too much of merging parties in demonstrating the existence of efficiencies-are misplaced, in part because they fail to recognize that full-blown merger investigations and subsequent litigation are focused on the mergers that are most likely to cause harm. t Nancy L. Rose is the Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Applied Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economic Analysis in the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division. Rose serves on the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute. tt Jonathan Sallet is a Senior Fellow at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, former Federal Communications Commission General Counsel, and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Litigation in the US DOJ Antitrust Division. The authors thank Bill Baer, Jonathan Baker, Cory Capps, Steven Salop, Carl Shapiro and participants in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review 2019 forum for helpful comments and discussions. They also thank Ryland Sherman of the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society for his assiduous research assistance. (1941)

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most