Entrenched dominant firms and anticompetitive consummated mergers pose growing problems for antitrust agencies throughout the world. A lot of thought is being given as to how to address these situations but perhaps the most obvious idea—breaking up such firms—is generally dismissed as impractical, the equivalent of trying to unscramble eggs. We disagree. We show that there have been a substantial number of successful breakups of firms, some in antitrust, more in regulated industries, and even more in the private sectors of the USA and UK as firms initiate their own restructuring. We believe that a policy of breakups can have a much greater chance at success compared to efforts to regulate such firms through rule-making conduct remedies. And we argue that breaking up such firms is facilitated by the fault lines that reveal the natural break points of these heavily merged firms. We recommend that breakups be on the policy menu for competition agencies.

中文翻译：

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解读鸡蛋：拆分已完成的合并和占主导地位的公司

根深蒂固的主导公司和反竞争的完成合并给全世界的反垄断机构带来了越来越多的问题。关于如何解决这些情况，人们进行了很多思考，但也许最明显的想法——拆分这些公司——通常被认为是不切实际的，相当于试图解读鸡蛋。我们不同意。我们表明，随着公司开始自己的重组，已经有大量成功的公司分拆，其中一些是在反垄断领域，更多是在受监管的行业，甚至更多的是在美国和英国的私营部门。我们认为，与通过制定规则的行为补救措施来规范此类公司的努力相比，分拆政策的成功机会要大得多。我们认为，断层线有助于拆分这些公司，这些断层线揭示了这些高度合并的公司的自然断点。我们建议将分拆列入竞争管理机构的政策菜单。