Merger Guidelines

The Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission recently released the 2023 Draft Merger Guidelines on July 19 and called for public comments. Those comments were due on September 18, and more than 1500 public comments are hosted on the agencies’ site.

This page, maintained by the Thurman Arnold Project at Yale, contains a small set of curated comments drawn from those public submissions as well as links to other high-quality articles commenting on the draft merger guidelines. We have focused on comments from economists with research and policy experience, especially those that highlight relevant research findings. This selection of substantive and constructive comments will help agency staff and leaders reform the Guidelines to achieve more effective protection of competition and consumers.

The commenters are listed in alphabetical order, and each name is followed by the file of their comments as well as any supporting literature that was attached to the comment. The list below will continue to be curated and expanded by the TAP team.