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3. Dezember 2021

Brown Bag Seminar Industrial Economics

Antitrust Policy and Innovation

Termin

3. Dezember 2021
10:30 - 11:30

Ort

Online seminar via Cisco Webex

Sprecher*innen

Giovanni Morzenti, Bocconi University, Milan

Innovation has recently come to the attention of Antitrust Authorities, even though the effect of mergers on innovation is still hotly debated. I study how the activity of Antitrust Authorities impacts future innovation of merging firms. Exploiting a change in notification rules I build an event study comparing mergers notified to the authorities with non-notified ones. I develop a new methodology to identify horizontal mergers, even between small private firms, involving text analysis of their patent abstracts. As a validation, my definition of horizontal mergers matches reasonably well with actual FTC decisions. As a result of the event study, I show that non-notified horizontal mergers lead to lower innovation effort, measured as patenting activity. This implies that Antitrust Authorities are effective in preventing mergers that would be harmful to innovation, if these mergers are notified to them

  

This is an online seminar using Cisco Webex. You will receive the link to join with the invitation email.

Speaker

Giovanni Morzenti, Department of Economics, Bocconi University, Milan

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