Political Influence and Merger Antitrust Reviews

We document that firms in the constituencies of powerful U.S. politicians that oversee antitrust regulators receive favorable mergers and acquisitions antitrust review outcomes. To establish identification, we exploit a subset of politician turnover events that are plausibly exogenous as well as a falsification test using powerful politicians with no jurisdiction over antitrust regulators. Politician incentives to influence merger antitrust review outcomes appear to be driven by lobbying, contributions, and prior business connections. Our findings suggest that merger antitrust reviews are not independent of self-serving political intervention.