Enforcement and Deterrence in Merger Control: The Case of Merger Remedies

Abstract This paper deals with the enforcement of merger control in the presence of remedies, and studies how merger remedies affect the deterrence accomplished by controlling mergers. We determine the optimal frequency of investigations launched by the agency, and find that when conditional approvals are possible, it may be harder to deter the most welfare-detrimental mergers, and the agency might have to investigate mergers more often. Furthermore, we find that remedies may very well decrease welfare. Finally, we show that our theoretical results help to understand some of the empirical findings in the literature.