|
Nobody seems to know, but without a doubt there are some, depending on how the regulations are implemented. According to research it does seem though that at least in the US and the Netherlands the benefits outweigh the costs:
"The analysis showed, first, that competition is typically desirable. Second, it was found that without antitrust policy, firms could and would (permanently) exercise market power to the detriment of overall welfare as well as consumer welfare.
Subsequently, an estimation of the costs and benefits of antitrust enforcement suggested - at least for the United States and the Netherlands - that the realised benefits overtop the realised costs by far as long as overcharges/redistribution effects and deadweight losses are considered as welfare loss. However, under a total welfare approach, only the avoidance of deadweight losses can be considered as benefit of antitrust policy and then, the benefits estimated for cartel and merger enforcement under a disaggregate approach weren’t able to cover the derived cost estimate for the United States and the Netherlands. However, it should be kept in mind that the deterrence effect as an important benefit of antitrust laws and enforcement didn’t enter the quantification. Generally, it has to be reminded that some cost and benefit components can hardly be measured with satisfactory accuracy."
http://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp08107.pdf
Conclusions on page 35.
|