This article suggests that U.S. merger enforcement, while more effective at preventing harmful mergers in the short term, does not work as well to avoid scenarios that pose significant costs on consumers over the long-term. These scenarios involve markets that are affected by successive mergers, large mergers, and strategically motived serial acquisitions that can, variously, fortify barriers to entry create market power bottlenecks, and accelerate the loss of independent competitors. The analysis unpacks key aspects of merger enforcement that heighten these risks. A major takeaway is that vigorous merger enforcement in the short term plays a key role in minimizing long-term costs of consolidation but because it cannot completely tackle the problem, other policy tools may be needed to protect consumers.
Read the full article from the October 2025 CPI Antitrust Chronicle.
