Strahil Lepoev, PhD

Dr. Lepoev has significant experience analyzing the competitive effects of merger and acquisition cases in a variety of industries, including hospitality, wireless network testing, food packaging, and product design software. He has evaluated several horizontal merger cases in which market definition was particularly important, including merger cases in which market boundaries may be defined by transportation cost and customer segmentation. In his work on vertical merger cases, Dr. Lepoev has also evaluated the potential for vertical foreclosure, specifically when one of the merging firms is an important supplier of a specialized production input. During his PhD studies, Dr. Lepoev analyzed the welfare effects of mergers and acquisitions in the retail pharmacy and rental car industries. He specializes in applied microeconomics, industrial organization, and econometrics.

Before joining NERA, Dr. Lepoev worked as a research assistant at the Oxford University Centre of Business Taxation, where he researched the impact of the Annual Investment Allowance on firms’ investment behavior. He also co-authored a paper on proposed UK changes to tax deductibility of corporate interest expense and wrote a policy paper assessing the effect of the change in Northern Ireland’s corporate tax rate on the competitiveness of the region’s tax system with respect to attracting new investment.