Abstract
Merger guidelines mean to reduce the uncertainty related to the possible anti-competitive impact of mergers/takeovers by businesses undertaking them. It is doubtful, according to the author, whether the Revised Merger Guidelines of two US Antitrust Authorities achieve that goal. They would seem to be too ‘theoretical’ in the face of inevitably unique merger events; moreover, the theory in the Guidelines has some important weaknesses and limitations. From an EC competition policy point of view, an efficiency trade-off for a dominant-firm merger is considered dubious procedure.
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The author is an emeritus professor of economics at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, currently President of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics (E.A.R.I.E.) and a member of the Academic Advisory Group to the E.E.C.'s Merger Control Task Force.
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de Jong, H.W. Reliable guidelines? A European comment. Rev Ind Organ 8, 203–209 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01034178
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01034178