Sometimes a false narrative is repeated so often that people accept it as true. This has been the situation with mergers in the US, where numerous government officials, some academics, and others have accepted and repeated a narrative that merger oversight has grown weak since the 1980s, resulting in increased industry concentration and market power.

Unfortunately, apparently no one thought to check the data…until now. A new study measures how judicial standards in merger cases have changed over the past four decades and reveals that these standards have become more pro-enforcement—exactly the opposite of the accepted wisdom.

Read the full take online at AEI.