Title: Antitrust in the Age of Intellectual Property: Licensing, Merger Approval, and Product PricesS

Speaker: Yabo Zhao, Assistant Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen)

Time: 10:00-11:30, May 29, 2026 (Friday)

Venue: Room 1008, Mingde Business Building (Zhongguancun Campus)

Language: English/Chinese

ABSTRACT:

How do firms respond to antitrust oversight when competition increasingly centers on intellectual property? We study whether firms strategically deploy IP licensing to navigate merger review and how such licensing shapes market outcomes. IP licensing rises sharply in reportable mergers, particularly in horizontal transactions, concentrated industries, and settings with heightened enforcement risk. Using granular product-level data, we show that licensing-facilitated mergers are followed by significantly higher prices, especially where competitive overlap is greatest. Licensing also increases completion rates and accelerates closing for challenged deals. Consistent with a strategic mechanism, firms license lower-value patents under less restrictive terms, limiting economic concessions. Together, the evidence suggests that IP licensing can undermine the effectiveness of antitrust regulation, allowing firms to secure approval while preserving the very market power the regulation seeks to constrain.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY:

Yabo Zhao is an Assistant Professor of finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, School of Management and Economics. She receives her PhD from UT Dallas in 2022. Her research focus on empirical corporate finance, innovation, labor and finance, and institutional investors.