Reevaluating Merger Guidelines for the New Economy

Abstract:     
The inherent dynamic competitiveness of the new economy brings about novel challenges to antitrust enforcements. We evaluate the appropriateness of the 1992 Horizontal Merger Guidelines in light of this new environment. We show that the Guidelines relies too heavily on market concentration measures that are bound to be overstated for new-economy industries. To properly address the dynamic competitiveness of the market, we suggest that the Guidelines should (i) explicitly consider innovation markets in the market-defining process, (ii) pay attention to entry conditions as the most important standard for assessing competitiveness, (iii) examine demand-side volatilities when assessing likeliness of entries, and (iv) use less strict standards for substantiating efficiency gains.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 29

Keywords: horizontal merger, antitrust, new economy

JEL Classification: K21

working papers series