There is broad concern that merger policy toward Big Tech has been too lenient. Big Tech typically operates in markets characterized by innovation-driven “competition for the market.” I show that this fact provides a rationale for heightened scrutiny of incumbents’ acquisitions of emerging or potential competitors. I also address the widespread argument that permissive merger policy promotes innovative entry by facilitating entry for buyout. I show that permissive merger policy can also discourage entrant innovation. One way is by diminishing entrants’ incentives to invest in marginal product improvements when such improvements reduce the gains from merger. A second way is by facilitating incumbency for buyout, under which an incumbent makes investments in order to extract rents from an entrant through merger.

人们普遍担心，对大技术公司的合并政策过于宽松。大技术公司通常在以创新为驱动力的“市场竞争”特征的市场中运营。我表明，这一事实为加强对现有企业对新兴或潜在竞争对手的收购的审查提供了依据。我还谈到了一个广泛的论点，即宽松的并购政策通过促进收购的进入来促进创新进入。我表明，宽松的合并政策也会阻碍新进入者的创新。一种方法是减少进入者对边际产品改进进行投资的动机，而这种改进会减少合并带来的收益。第二种方法是通过促进收购的负担，在这种情况下，在位者进行投资以通过合并从进入者那里获取租金。