This paper evaluates Korea Fair Trade Commission's decisions on 13 horizontal merger cases, using stock market data. Our results suggest that the commission's decisions are consistent with the reaction of the stock market only in 3 three cases and that in five cases they are not. In the rest 5 cases, we find insignificant results. It is noteworthy that the five inconsistent merger cases were reviewed by the commission during the Korean economic crisis. This might indicate that sociopolitical factors other than competition or consumer welfare affected the commission's decisions.

This text is in Korean. If you wish to access this file, please go to the Korean site and register. Thank you