Expelling the Economists from EU Merger Control

In this essay I discuss the claims and evidence in a recent paper, which has received significant attention in the media and the policy debate. The paper finds that “hired economic consultancies” play a key role in a new lobbying strategy – spamming DG Comp with submissions of low quality in order to exploit the regulator’s limited resources and the informal requirement to respond to all submissions. I review the empirical analyses allegedly supporting the conclusion. I then discuss the