Nathan Miller is a noted industrial organization economist whose research has contributed to issues of practical importance in antitrust enforcement, particularly merger analysis.
Professor Miller’s academic work ranges from technical econometrics research, to practical approaches to predicting merger price effects, to evaluation of merger retrospectives. Professor Miller’s research has featured prominently in ongoing merger policy discussions, including being cited favorably by academic experts responding to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) recent request for information (RFI) on merger enforcement and guidelines, and in public remarks by the DOJ’s Director of Policy.
An example of Professor Miller’s academic research is his award-winning article on coordinated effects arising from the MillerCoors joint venture in the beer industry. The article addresses an issue of profound importance in antitrust circles. Specifically, it shows that, after the joint venture, prices rose by more than could be explained through unilateral effects (i.e., the direct consequences of the loss of competition between Miller and Coors) and that these increases are, instead, consistent with coordinated effects. The DOJ’s Director of Policy recently cited this paper as evidence that coordinated effects are important and as a reason to re-examine their role in merger enforcement.
Professor Miller’s academic work ranges from technical econometrics research, to practical approaches to predicting merger price effects, to evaluation of merger retrospectives.
Professor Miller contributes frequently to contemporary antitrust policy debates. He has authored or coauthored multiple RFI comments emphasizing the need to preserve the Guidelines’ credibility by hewing to academic consensus and—often citing his own research—suggesting potential enforcement improvements built on such a foundation. For example, Professor Miller’s article on regressions of prices on measures of industry concentration shows that these types of analyses are generally inappropriate. Further, in “Mergers, Entry, and Consumer Welfare,” he and his coauthors show that it is usually inconsistent for merging firms to expect merger-induced entry sufficient to offset any competitive harm, while also being profit-maximizers. Other commenters have also cited these papers, demonstrating their importance to ongoing policy discussions.
Professor Miller applies his expertise to important antitrust matters on which he has consulted. These include Cigna’s proposed acquisition of Express Scripts, US Foods’ proposed acquisition of Services Group of America, and the proposed acquisition of Harry’s by Edgewell Personal Care Company. Professor Miller has also appeared before the Competition Tribunal of Canada on behalf of the government twice in the last three years: P&H’s acquisition of grain elevators from Louis Dreyfus, and Secure’s acquisition of Tervita. In his earlier work as a staff economist for the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, Professor Miller assessed an array of complex mergers, including AT&T/T-Mobile and Ticketmaster/LiveNation.