Antitrust and Merger Policy: A Review and Critique

Abstract

This review will consider the Department of Justice Merger Guidelines of the 1980s, discussing market definition, market share concentration and entry conditions, consideration of other market characteristics, and cost efficiencies. It will also assess the application of the guidelines in practice. The merger guidelines are certainly not perfect, nor have they been applied perfectly. But they represent an important advance over that which preceded them, and they represent an exceedingly sensible way to think about merger enforcement and especially about market definition in a merger context. Policy has surely improved as a consequence of their development and application.