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Do Mergers Kill Innovation? (with Joel Stiebale)

Do Mergers Kill Innovation? (with Joel Stiebale)

Bei Anruf Wettbewerb vor 2 Wochen

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52:07

Do mergers kill innovation?This week, Joel Stiebale joins
Rupprecht Podszun and Justus Haucap in the Bei Anruf Wettbewerb
studio. Joel is Professor of Empirical Industrial Economics at
Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and has studied what happens
to innovation after companies merge. The results have caused
quite a stir at the European Commission.Looking at more than
3,000 mergers reviewed and cleared by the European Commission,
Joel Stiebale and Florian Szücs find that innovation declines
after mergers, while markups and profits increase. The findings
raise questions about a common argument in merger cases: that
mergers create efficiencies that ultimately benefit consumers.So
what does this mean for merger control? The debate in Europe
often focuses on whether merger policy is too strict and prevents
European companies from gaining the scale they need to compete
internationally. But do the new findings point in the opposite
direction? Is merger control perhaps not strict enough? Joel,
Justus and Rupprecht discuss what we can – and cannot – learn
from the study.And finally, with the announcement just around the
corner, the three make their predictions: Who will win this
year’s Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences?

Further Information

Study on the impact of mergers reviewed by the European
Commission on innovation and markups - An empirical Investigation

Video of the Online-Workshop of EU Competition