Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/195907 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
DIW Discussion Papers No. 1797
Publisher: 
Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW), Berlin
Abstract: 
We study the evolution of the EC's merger decision procedure over the first 25 years of European competition policy. Using a novel dataset constructed at the level of the relevant markets and containing all merger cases over the 1990-2014 period, we evaluate how consistently arguments related to structural market parameters were applied over time. Using non-parametric machine learning techniques, we find that the importance of market shares and concentration measures has declined while the importance of barriers to entry and the risk of foreclosure has increased in the EC's merger assessment following the 2004 merger policy reform.
Subjects: 
merger policy
DG Competition
causal forests
JEL: 
K21
L40
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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