Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/92484 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
CSIO Working Paper No. 0112
Publisher: 
Northwestern University, Center for the Study of Industrial Organization (CSIO), Evanston, IL
Abstract: 
We analyze the optimal policy of an antitrust authority towards horizontal mergers when merger proposals are endogenous and firms choose which of several mutually exclusive mergers to propose. The optimal policy of an antitrust authority that seeks to maximize expected consumer surplus involves discriminating between mergers based on a naive computation of the post-merger Herfindahl index (over and above the apparent effect of the proposed merger on consumer surplus). We show that the antitrust authority optimally imposes a tougher standard on those mergers that raise the index by more.
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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