Coordinated Effects and the Half-truth of the Lax Enforcement Narrative

A debate is brewing between antitrust critics who claim that merger enforcement has been weak and fading since the 1980s and establishment defenders who respond that merger enforcement has stood firm and even toughened since the Chicago revolution. Could the truth be somewhere in between? Available data reject the broad assertion that overall merger enforcement has declined in recent decades, but support the narrower assertion that coordinated effects enforcement has declined. We consider what t