By David J. Balan –
A key factor in the analysis of hospital merger efficiencies is whether a claimed efficiency is “merger-specific,” meaning that it would likely be achieved with the merger under review, but not without it. While this principle is straightforward, determining the mergerspecificity of particular claimed efficiencies in real-world cases can be a subtle problem. The purpose of this article is to illuminate one of these subtleties, namely the important role played by the geographic proximity or non-proximity between the merging hospitals.
