An Evaluation of the Impact of the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines

Abstract

In comparison to the prior Guidelines, the 2010 Guidelines:

(i) de-emphasized market definition;

(ii) introduced the concept of upward price pressure (UPP) explicitly into the Guidelines;

(iii) maintained focus on potential harm from “coordinated effects” despite what appeared to be its diminishing role in merger analyses (but failed to connect the economics of unilateral behavior to the economics of coordinated behavior);

(iv) discussed entry and the implications of profit margins; and

(v) discussed auctions and bargaining.

In this article we address several questions. How have these more novel changes worked out in practice? How does what happened compare to what we thought would happen at the time the 2010 Guidelines were introduced? And what lessons can be learned from experience to date?

JEL Classification: K, L