Empirische Ex-Post Evaluation Wettbewerbspolitischer Entscheidungen: Methodische Anmerkungen (Empirical Ex-Post Evaluation of Competition Policy Decisions: Methodological Remarks)

Abstract:     
This paper provides a comparative analysis of methods for the empirical ex post evaluation of merger control decisions. It develops a competition-policy oriented framework of assessment criteria for the leading evaluation methods and applies them to structural modeling and simulation, differences-in-differences methods, event studies as well as survey-based methods. It concludes that a method-mix is recommendable, however, under the exclusion of event studies that fail to secure a minimum level of reliability regarding the evaluation results. Furthermore, it warns against overly optimistic expectations about the effects of systematic impact evaluations of merger decisions.

Note: Downloadable document is in German.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 30

Keywords: empirical methods of industrial organization, merger control, competition policy, antitrust decisions, comparative analysis

JEL Classification: C18, C54, L41, L40, K21

working papers series