Mergers and market power: evidence from rivals' responses in European markets
利用欧盟委员会并购决定中的专家市场定义，分析并购如何影响非合并竞争对手的加价率，发现竞争对手在并购后加价率上升，尤其在集中度高、竞争者少和国内市场的情况下更显著。
Abstract We analyze the effects of M&A on the markups of non‐merging rival firms across a broad set of industries. We exploit expert market definitions from the European Commission's merger decisions to identify relevant competitors in narrowly defined product markets and estimate markups as a measure of market power. Our results indicate that rivals increase their markups after mergers. Consistent with increases in market power, the effects are particularly pronounced when pre‐merger concentration is high, when competitors are few, and when relevant markets are national. Merger rivals also reduce their employment, sales, and investment, whereas their profits increase.