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Upcoming Roundtables

Past Roundtables

The roundtable focuses on a retrospective analysis of the Allison(GM)/ZF transaction, 1993. The Allison transaction illustrates the question of competitive pressure from outside the market that merger guidelines require to define. In the transaction, the DoJ defined a narrow market following standard static tools like the SSNIP test. The market definition made little sense when compared to actual industry reports. What were the constraints, if any, that led the DoJ in the particular case to follow that route, and reject alternative market definitions? And what teaching can we harvest for contemporary cases?

Discussants:

  • Doug Melamed
  • Nicolas Petit

Find the video and papers connected to this roundtable here

The roundtable will focus on Prof Doug Melamed’s recent paper titled “Mergers involving nascent competitors”. The paper advances a framework for a narrow prohibition of such mergers, based on Section 2 of the Sherman Act. More broadly, the roundtable will offer a forum to discuss the law and economics of the treatment of “killer acquisitions” in antitrust policy.

Discussants:

  • Allison Stanger
  • David Bosco

Find the video and papers connected to this roundtable here

In his book, Neil Chilson makes the case that the best response to complexity is an emergent mindset that seeks opportunities to “get out of control.” This mindset requires people to embrace their autonomy as individuals and admit limitations as part of something larger.

The emergent mindset confounds managers grasping for control but holds great promise for leaders willing to adopt it.

Discussants:

  • Peter Klein
  • Asta Pundziene

Find the video and papers connected to this roundtable here

The Roundtable will explore M&As in Platform Markets: Understanding the Dynamic Relation between Corporate Activities and Market Activities.

Abstract: This paper analyzes the impact of corporate activities such as M&As and CVC Investments on market activities (such as new firm entry and exit, new investment, etc.), considering the other firms in the related industry. Preliminary analysis mainly focuses on the Merger and Acquisition (M&A) corporate activities, where both acquirer (i.e., corporations) and acquiree (i.e., target startup) are “platforms”. We adopt an event study approach employing the (global) Pitchbook dataset. Unlike previous findings that focus on negative externalities (e,g., killer competition), we find a mixed externality effect for the startups that are similar to the acquiree after the M&A. Preliminary findings indicate a more complex relationship between M&As and market activities, and suggests that acquisitions might be a positive or negative information signal to the market depending on the underlying state of technological and market development. Additional analysis will be focusing thus on seed investments in target companies before they are acquired (i.e., CVC investment) to assess the whole dynamic effect of corporate activities on the shaping of subsequent market activities.   

Discussants:

Find the video and papers connected to this roundtable here.

Dynamic Competition Initiative

Supported by Berkeley Haas & EUI Department of Law