White Paper | Scrambled Eggs and Paralyzed Policy: Breaking Up Consummated Mergers and Dominant Firms

Open Markets Institute is pleased to publish an important new white paper, “Scrambled Eggs and Paralyzed Policy: Breaking Up Consummated Mergers and Dominant Firms,” by the economists John Kwoka and Tommaso Valletti that looks at cases in which U.S. and European law enforcers required corporations to unwind completed mergers.

The paper is a timely contribution, coming just after the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Facebook for antitrust violations which included a call for the company to divest from Instagram and WhatsApp.

The usual response to the idea of breaking up dominant firms or consummated mergers is to argue that the costs and difficulties are overwhelming, but many of these experiences with actual breakups are in fact successful restructurings, with major widely recognized benefits in terms of price, innovation, and investment.

Download the paper here or read the full paper below.