Kwoka’s Mergers, Merger Control, and Remedies: Rejoinder to Kwoka

Abstract

John Kwoka’s Mergers, Merger Control, and Remedies is a meta-analysis of “retrospective” academic studies of consummated mergers and other horizontal arrangements. Based on this meta-analysis, Kwoka strongly criticizes federal enforcement policies, claiming that the agencies permit far too many anticompetitive mergers to go unchallenged, and are far too willing to accept remedies that fail to prevent a significant loss of competition. Kwoka claims further that this excessive leniency is culmination of a trend reflecting deliberate policy choices made over the last several decades. In a forthcoming critique, Vita & Osinski challenge Kwoka’s analysis and his conclusions, identifying serious flaws in the size, construction, and composition of his sample, and in the statistical analysis of the data drawn from that sample. In a published response to Vita & Osinski, Professor Kwoka offers a number of objections and counter-arguments. In this rejoinder, I respond to Professor Kwoka.