Merger Policy with Merger Choice
研究了当企业可以自主选择合并方案时，反垄断机构的最优政策。发现最优政策会对市场份额更大的合并施加更严格的标准，以纠正企业倾向于提出对消费者不利的大合并的偏差。
We analyze the optimal policy of an antitrust authority towards horizontal mergers when merger proposals are endogenous and firms choose among alternative mergers. In our model, the optimal policy of an antitrust authority that seeks to maximize expected consumer surplus imposes a tougher standard on “larger” mergers, i.e., those involving firms with a larger pre-merger market share. The optimal policy is a response to a bias in firms' proposal incentives: firms always propose a larger merger when it is better for consumers than a smaller one, but sometimes will propose the larger one even when it is worse for consumers.