What Past US Agency Actions Say About Complexity in Merger Remedies, With an Application to Generic Drug Divestitures

Posted by Social Science Research Network

What Past US Agency Actions Say About Complexity in Merger Remedies, With an Application to Generic Drug Divestitures

By Eric Emch & Arthur Zhou (Bates White Economic Consulting); Thomas D. Jeitschko (Michigan State University)

Abstract:      We consider merger remedies of the US Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and the US Federal Trade Commission between 2008 and 2017. Traditionally one distinguishes between structural and behavioral remedies—and structural remedies are generally considered to be more effective and easier to implement. Our analysis suggests that over time this distinction has become somewhat blurred and a better gradation of remedies may be tied to the complexity of the proposed remedy. Divestitures in the market for generic drugs, in particular, are particularly complex, even though the remedies are of a structural, and so their efficacy is hard to ascertain.

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