Horizontal Mergers, Structural Remedies and Consumer Welfare in a Cournot Oligopoly with Assets

Competition authorities sometimes require that firms divest some of their assets to rivalsin order to allow a merger to take place. This paper extends the results of Farrell andShapiro [1990a] and shows that, in the absence of technological synergies, a merger ishighly unlikely to benefit consumers, even if it is subjected to appropriate structuralremedies. For instance, a merger may ultimately lead to a lower price only if at leasttwo different firms acquire the divested assets, and if the merging parties had relativelyimportant pre-merger market shares.