Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/60470 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
DICE Discussion Paper No. 64
Publisher: 
Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE), Düsseldorf
Abstract: 
We analyze the efficiency defense in merger control. First, we show that the relationship between exogenous efficiency gains and social welfare can be non-monotone. Second, we consider both endogenous mergers and endogenous efficiencies and find that merger proposals are largely aligned with a proper social welfare analysis which explicitly considers the without merger counterfactual. We demonstrate that the merger specificity requirement does not help much to select socially desirable mergers; to the contrary, it may frustrate desirable mergers inducing firms not to claim efficiencies at all.
Subjects: 
Horizontal Mergers
Efficiency Defense
Merger Specific Efficiencies
JEL: 
K21
L13
L41
ISBN: 
978-3-86304-063-5
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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