Law Commons^™

Lessons For Competition Policy From The Vitamins Cartel, William E. Kovacic

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Mergers have the potential for negative social welfare consequences from increased likelihood or effectiveness of future collusion. This raises the question of whether there are meaningful thresholds for the post-merger industry that should trigger significant scrutiny by the Department of Justice or Federal Trade Commission. This paper provides empirical analysis relevant to this question. The data does not come from an industry in which there were mergers, but instead from an industry in which explicit collusion was admittedly rampant in the 1990's, the Vitamins Industry. Different vitamin products are produced by different numbers of firms, and for different vitamin products, …