Vertical Mergers and Integration in Digital Markets

Abstract

In this chapter, we address three issues relating to vertical mergers and antitrust: (1) incorporating the elimination of double marginalization into the analysis of the likelihood of a unilateral price effect rather than treating it as a separate efficiencies defense; (2) recognizing, inter alia, the importance of reduced transaction costs in analyzing the efficiencies commonly associated with vertical mergers; and (3) highlighting that the weight of the empirical evidence continues to support the proposition that vertical mergers are less likely to generate competitive concerns than horizontal mergers.