Panel (a) counts the mergers reported to the Federal Trade Commission each year. Companies must report a deal once one of the firms is above a size threshold, which was $101 million of sales in 2022. The count tracks the business cycle: it collapsed after the 2001 recession, climbed back to 2,201 by 2007 as the Great Recession arrived, bottomed at 716 in 2009, and recovered after that.
Panel (b) breaks the 2012 deals down by size. The most common size was $100 to $150 million, with 298 deals. Deals under $50 million barely appear, because companies only have to report those in limited circumstances. Of the 1,400 reported deals, 364 were above $500 million and 156 above $1 billion, the 26 percent and 11 percent the chapter quotes. The slider drops the early years from panel (a) and rescales it, which makes the post-recession pattern easier to read.