John Kwoka's Mergers, Merger Control, and Remedies: A Critical Review
29 Pages Posted: 22 Dec 2016
Date Written: December 21, 2016
Abstract
John Kwoka’s recently published Mergers, Merger Control, and Remedies (2015) has received considerable attention from both antitrust practitioners and academics. The book features a meta-analysis of retrospective studies of consummated mergers, joint ventures, and other horizontal arrangements. Based on summary statistics derived from these studies, Kwoka concludes that domestic antitrust agencies are excessively tolerant in their merger enforcement; that merger remedies are ineffective at mitigating market power; and that merger enforcement has become increasingly lax over time. We review both his evidence and his empirical methods, and conclude that serious deficiencies in both undermine the basis for these conclusions.
Keywords: antitrust, mergers, public policy
JEL Classification: L40, L41, L00, C18
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation