Horizontal merger under strategic tax policy

In a Cournot oligopoly with consumption externality, we show that the presence of a strategic tax policy increases the incentive for a horizontal merger compared to the situation with no tax policy. Thus, we point towards a new factor, viz., strategic tax policy, for increasing the incentive for a horizontal merger that has been ignored in the existing literature. In contrast to the usual belief, we also show that a horizontal merger may benefit the consumers and increase social welfare. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.