A Large-Scale Evaluation of Merger Simulations / Vivek Bhattacharya, Gastón Illanes, Avner A. Kreps, José D. Salas, David Stillerman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bhattacharya, Vivek.

Contributor:

Illanes, Gastón.

Kreps, Avner A.

Salas, José D.

Stillerman, David.

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w35473.

NBER working paper series no. w35473

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2026.

Summary:

Prospective merger simulations are a commonly used tool in industrial organization and antitrust, but evidence about their accuracy and predictive ability is limited. We study 101 mergers in consumer packaged goods and compare the realizations of price changes with predictions from merger simulations. In our sample of consummated mergers, predicted price changes from merger simulations are typically larger than realized ones. Despite the overprediction, we find that full merger simulations are more effective than both structural presumptions and approximations of the merger effect at identifying mergers with large price changes.

Notes:

July 2026.

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