The AT&T/Time Warner Merger: Judge Leon Garbled Professor Nash

Posted by Social Science Research Network

The AT&T/Time Warner Merger: Judge Leon Garbled Professor Nash

By Steven C. Salop (Georgetown University)

This short article forthcoming in the Journal of Antitrust Enforcement offers comments on Judge Leon’s opinion in the AT&T/Time Warner vertical merger litigation. It provides out a critical analysis of the court’s skeptical treatment of the Nash bargaining theory that formed the basis of the DOJ’s complaint and the economic errors he made. The article also raises questions about whether Judge Leon’s economic errors in analyzing the bargaining model might have affected his interpretation of the evidence. The article also offers some critical comments about the DOJ’s treatment of efficiencies from the elimination of double marginalization.

Continue reading…