The 1992 Horizontal Merger Guidelines: A brief critique

The 1992 Horizontal Merger Guidelines of the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission represent an improvement over previous horizontal merger guidelines in certain respects especially in the treatment of entry. However, the 1992 Guidelines continue to suffer from problems with market definition methodology. Also, the softening of HHI presumptions and burdens and the incorporation of an increased competitive effects section seem to reduce the effectiveness of the Guidelines.The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and not of any state or federal agency.