https://macropaperwarehouse.com/authors/gaston-illanes/Gastón IllanesHugo -- gohugo.ioen-ushttps://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/merger-effects-and-antitrust-enforcement-evidence-from-us-consumer-packaged-goods/https://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/merger-effects-and-antitrust-enforcement-evidence-from-us-consumer-packaged-goods/<p>This paper by Bhattacharya, Illanes, and Stillerman makes two contributions to the debate over US antitrust enforcement stringency. First, it documents the price, quantity, and assortment effects of a comprehensive set of consummated mergers in US consumer packaged goods (CPG). Second, it develops and estimates a model of agency enforcement decisions to quantify antitrust stringency and simulate counterfactual outcomes under stricter regimes.</p> <p><strong>Data and scope.</strong> The analysis covers 129 product markets across 47 transactions in US CPG from 2006 to 2017, using the NielsenIQ Retail Scanner Dataset (covering 35,000–50,000 stores and 2.6–4.5 million UPCs). The sample is restricted to all deals valued at $280 million or more where both the acquirer and target sold products in at least one overlapping product market-DMA. Geographic markets are NielsenIQ designated market areas (DMAs). The sample is defined to avoid selection bias from studying only mergers that attracted press attention or were litigation targets.</p>