Behavioral Antitrust and Merger Control

Abstract

Scholarship on competition policy has begun to explore the implications of learning from behavioral research and to challenge the assumption of profit maximization at the heart of neoclassical economic theory of the firm. This scholarship is briefly reviewed, focusing on merger control. Prospects for basing merger control entirely on data from actual mergers or laboratory experiments are explored. Also explored are implications of behavioral research for merger assessment in consumer-goods industries. The conclusion is that competition policy should continue to rely on neoclassical economic analysis based on the assumption of profit maximization.