How to Get Away with Merger: Stealth Consolidation and Its Effects on US Healthcare

I thank Jimmy Roberts for suggesting the setting, Paul Eliason for helping navigate the data, and Fiona Scott Morton (NBER discussant), Judy Chevalier (ASSA discussant), John Asker, Dave Balan, Dennis Carlton, Thom Covert, Austan Goolsbee, Neale Mahoney, Ariel Pakes, Nancy Rose, Chad Syverson, Haris Tabakovic, and Mike Whinston, and seminar participants at Harvard University, Yale University, the Federal Trade Commission, Duke University, KU Leuven, MIT, Northwestern University, Stanford University, Washington University in St. Louis, Columbia University, University of Maryland, ITAM, Boston University, Georgetown, Chicago Booth, the NBER Winter IO Meeting, the ASSA Annual Meeting, Microsoft Research, Charles River Associates, the Hal White Antitrust Conference, the ASHEcon Annual Conference, and the Midwest IO Conference for thoughtful comments. Credit for the title belongs with Mike Sinkinson. (Note that the title was suggested and adopted before the paper contemplated mortality and is not intended to make light of that outcome.) Excellent research assistance was provided by James Kiselik, Paulo Henrique Ramos, Divya Vallabhanen, and Jason Yang. Financial support from the Becker Friedman Institute’s Health Economics Initiative is gratefully acknowledged. The data reported here have been supplied by the United States Renal Data System (USRDS). The interpretation and reporting of these data are the responsibility of the author and in no way should be seen as an official policy or interpretation of the US government. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

• May 26, 2020