Are public and private outlays for physical and knowledge capital accumulation equally productive?

Utility firms are subject to peculiar regulatory characteristics that may allow for unique wealth effects resulting from acquisitions. The wealth effects derived from acquisitions of utility firms is measured and the analysis reveals negative wealth effects for acquirers and positive wealth effects for targets. However, the wealth effects are generally less favorable for utility firm acquirers than other acquirer firms because of the regulatory barriers that prevent them from pursuing attractive targets.     

Difficult to digest: Takeovers of distressed banks in Vietnam

Government-induced or voluntary takeovers are frequently used as an indirect way to bail out distressed banks. In this paper, we analyse the impact of acquisitions on banking performance in Vietnam. To demonstrate that the acquirer is not simply inheriting the properties of the underperforming targets, we compare the performance of the merged bank to the pro forma consolidated performance of the acquirer and the target before the merger. We show that takeovers during and after the financial crisis substantially weaken profitability and liquidity and that this negative effect persists for a period of at least 6 years. These findings show that shareholders should be wary of acquisitions and suggest that stabilizing banks through mergers may have detrimental indirect long-term consequences on the efficiency of financial systems and ultimately economic growth.     

Matching Industries between Target and Acquirer in High-Tech Mergers and Acquisitions

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been regarded as a highly viable option for fostering innovation, gaining new products or services, and gaining access to new markets in high technology firms. This study analyzes several alternative variables that impact M&A choices by analyzing their relationship to the industry of both the acquirer and target. Results support two hypotheses implying that (1) M&A transactions with the same acquirer and target industry are more likely to be acquisitions that delivers a greater final share of the target organization to the acquirer, and (2) acquirers are more likely to invest greater dollar amounts in targets that have the same primary industry.     

Matching Industries between Target and Acquirer in High-Tech Mergers and Acquisitions

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been regarded as a highly viable option for fostering innovation, gaining new products or services, and gaining access to new markets in high technology firms. This study analyzes several alternative variables that impact M&A choices by analyzing their relationship to the industry of both the acquirer and target. Results support two hypotheses implying that (1) M&A transactions with the same acquirer and target industry are more likely to be acquisitions that delivers a greater final share of the target organization to the acquirer, and (2) acquirers are more likely to invest greater dollar amounts in targets that have the same primary industry.     

多元化并购、资源基础与制造企业服务化转型——基于fsQCA的多案例分析

为探究制造业企业通过并购实现服务化的转型路径,以2014至2018年制造企业并购服务企业并购事件为研究对象,运用组态思维和fsQCA方法整合服务型资源质量维度与服务型资源整合维度的5个前因条件,讨论前因变量组合与制造业服务化转型之间的复杂因果机制。结果表明,制造业服务化转型存在3条转型路径,即研发能力驱动型、财务能力驱动型和服务化经验驱动型。通过分析路径和典型案例发现：在评估服务型资源质量时,标的方的盈利能力、研发能力存在替代效应;并购方财务柔性在基于并购的服务化转型中具有重要作用;并购方服务化经验有助于并购整合。     

The take-over market for privately held companies: the US experience

The volume of acquisitions involving privately held firms hasfar surpassed that of publicly traded firms in recent years;yet this segment of the take-over market remains largely unexplored.In analysing the unique features of private target take-overs,we compare the mergers and acquisitions markets for unquotedand quoted firms on several dimensions including methods ofpayment, offer premiums and bidder wealth effects. Our resultsshow that these mergers provide positive shareholder wealthbenefits for bidders and relatively high premiums for privatelyheld targets. Also, the market's reaction depends on whetherit perceives the price paid for the target as too high or toolow, a rational response given the sentiment at the time ofthe announcement.     

Strategic merger waves: A theory of musical chairs

This paper proposes an explanation of merger waves based on the interaction between competitive pressure and irreversibility of mergers in an uncertain environment. A set of acquirers compete over time for scarce targets. At each point in time, an acquirer can either postpone a takeover attempt or raid immediately. By postponing the takeover attempt, an acquirer may gain from more favorable future market conditions, but runs the risk of being preempted by rivals. First, a complete information model is considered and it is shown that the above tradeoff leads to a continuum of subgame perfect equilibria in monotone strategies that are strictly Pareto ranked. All these equilibria share the feature that all acquirers rush simultaneously in merger waves. The model is then extended to a dynamic global game by introducing slightly noisy private information about merger profitability. This game is shown to have a unique Markov perfect Bayesian equilibrium in monotone strategies and the timing of the merger wave can thus be predicted. Last, the comparative dynamics predictions of the model are related to stylized facts.     

The impact of mergers on acquiring firm shareholder wealth: The 1905–1930 experience

From the standpoint of investors successful acquisitions increase profitability and stock Contemporary studies find acquiring firm shareholders earning small gains before and large losses after consolidation. Using modern financial market procedures, we examine a portfolio of 191 acquiring firms from 1905 to 1930 to determine the impact on firm owners of early industrial acquisitions in the United States and the effect of institutional changes on takeover gains. Acquisitions from 1905 to 1930 raised shareholder wealth by more than 3 percent, an increase exceeding gains from more recent mergers. Stock price continued to rise after completion for acquisitions before World War I, but fell dramatically for acquisitions during the oligopoly merger wave of the late 1920s.We would like to thank Patrick Byrne and Tara Nussman for help in collecting the financial data, Ralph Nelson for permitting us to use his and Carl Eis's worksheets on merger activity from 1905 to 1930, and George Bittlingmayer, Malcolm Burns, David Gulley, Stephen Grubaugh, Lori Leeth, John Matsusaka, Dennis Mueller, Rexford Santerre, Scott Sumner, Tugrul Temel, and Nikhil Varaiya for their helpful comments.     

Picking “Lemons” or Picking “Cherries”? Domestic and Foreign Acquisitions in Norwegian Manufacturing*

We compare the performance in employment, wages and productivity for domestic plants acquired by new domestic and foreign owners. Prospective foreign owners pick large, high‐wage, high‐productivity plants, while new domestic owners choose average performers of above‐average size. Employment, labour productivity, and total factor productivity decline in domestic acquisition targets before acquisitions; only wages recover afterwards. Employment, wages and labour productivity increase after foreign acquisitions. The sample selection introduced by long‐term comparisons and a focus on unique events introduces a downward bias into the results for domestic acquisitions and an upward bias for the foreign acquisitions.     

Globalization and profitability of cross-border mergers and acquisitions

This paper studies how the surplus generated by the globalization process is divided between MNEs and owners of domestic assets. We construct an oligopoly model where the equilibrium acquisition pattern, the acquisition price and firms’ greenfield investments are endogenously determined. Acquisition entry is shown to be more likely when the complementarity between domestic and foreign assets is high. However, we show that such acquisitions might have a low profitability, since the bidding competition over the domestic assets is then so fierce that the firms involved would be better off not starting a bidding war. Risks associated with different entry modes are also examined.     

Does market misvaluation drive post-acquisition underperformance in stock deals?

There is limited direct evidence on the impact of market misvaluation on acquirer long run performance. In this paper, we hypothesize that stock prices of stock-financed acquirers would move toward their fundamental value in the long run, thus correcting the initial overvaluation. Empirical results show that more overvalued acquirers are associated with poorer post-acquisition abnormal returns. We eliminate the concern that our findings are due to either overpayment or overvaluation-driven bad acquisitions. Our results are robust to controlling for market-wide valuation, alternative methods and assumptions used to calculate abnormal returns and fundamental value, and other factors affecting acquirer returns.     

Does it pay firms to register for taxes? The impact of formality on firm profitability

This paper estimates the impact of registering for taxes on firm profits in Bolivia, the country with the highest levels of informality in Latin America. A new survey of micro and small firms enables us to control for a rich set of measures of owner ability and business motivations that can affect both profits and the decision to formalize. We identify the impact of tax registration on business profitability using the distance of a firm from the tax office where registration occurs, conditional on the distance to the city center, as an instrument for registration. Proximity to the tax office provides firms with more information about registration, but is argued to not directly affect profits. We find tax registration leads to significantly higher profits for the firms that the instrument affects. However, we also find some evidence of heterogeneous effects of tax formality on profits. Tax registration appears to increase profits for the mid-sized firms in our sample, but to lower profits for both the marginal smaller and larger firms, in contrast to the standard view that formality increases profits. We show that owners of large firms who have managed to stay informal are of higher entrepreneurial ability than formal firm owners, in contrast to the standard view (correct among smaller firms) that informal firm owners are low ability.     

Governments in the market for corporate control: Evidence from M&A deals involving state-owned enterprises

Recent evidence suggests that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are increasingly taking over other firms. Such domestic or transborder acquisitions are the reverse of privatizations, where SOEs are the target of private investors. The question we ask is whether, because of the specific objectives and risks faced by governments, SOEs deviate from the benchmark of deals involving private firms on both sides of the merger and acquisition (M&A) transaction. To answer this new research question, we focus on a set of firm-level characteristics of the targets and acquirers involved in the deals. We built an original dataset of 31,479 deals in 138 countries drawing from Zephyr and Orbis (Bureau Van Dijk) data. Empirical results of multinomial logit and OLS models show that deals involving SOEs are clearly different from the benchmark of private–private deals. This is mainly due to the greater assets, higher solvency ratios, broader experience of deals, and closer proximity to targets of the acquirers (both public and private) under public–private, public–public, and private–public deals compared to private–private deals.     

产业转型升级中的民企承继问题--以“富二代”接班议题为例

从经济社会学视角审视产业转型升级研究，其间涉及到社会分层的合理化、企业承继，以及产业组织化等议题。本文以民营企业“富二代”接班为例，借助于诺斯的“共享心智模型’’理念，探求了民营企业财富与运营控制权的代际传承与产业转型升级之间的关联。本文结论的是，企业承继涉及到的不只是产业特征和经营特质等物质财富问题，更关联到心灵财富问题，即基于“国家（政府）一市场一社会”逻辑框架上“心智”的转型升级。     

Falling under the control of a different type of owner:risk-taking implications for banks

European banks have experienced significant changes in the type of entity that owns them (another bank, an individual or a family, a non-financial company, an institutional investor, a government, a foreign entity, a domestic entity…). In this paper, we look at the influence of ownership type changes on risk and profitability. Working with a panel of commercial banks from 17 European countries, we find that although banks that experience a change in ownership type do not exhibit lower or higher risk or profitability than other banks, their risk and profitability is significantly affected after the change takes place. The type of the acquirer plays a significant role in explaining the observed changes. When the acquirer is a non-financial company, the state or an institutional investor, the level of risk increases after the change while the level of profitability remains unchanged. Conversely, when the acquirer is a bank, we find that the level of risk-adjusted profitability decreases. Banks acquired by a different type of owner during the global financial crisis do not perform better or worse than they did before.     

产业转型升级中的民企承继问题——以“富二代”接班议题为例

从经济社会学视角审视产业转型升级研究,其间涉及到社会分层的合理化、企业承继,以及产业组织化等议题。本文以民营企业"富二代"接班为例,借助于诺斯的"共享心智模型"理念,探求了民营企业财富与运营控制权的代际传承与产业转型升级之间的关联。本文结论的是,企业承继涉及到的不只是产业特征和经营特质等物质财富问题,更关联到心灵财富问题,即基于"国家(政府)-市场-社会"逻辑框架上"心智"的转型升级。     

Worker–Plant Matching and Ownership Change*

Is a change in ownership an opportunity for the new owners to make systematic changes to the workforce of the acquired plant? Using matched employer–employee data, we document changes to the workforce along observable and unobservable dimensions of worker quality around the time of ownership change. We observe above-average separations of workers around domestic acquisitions. This is associated with a decline in unobserved worker quality in the plant. Foreign acquisitions are not associated with above-average worker turnover; instead, new foreign owners share rents with the high-skilled workers who are already in the plant before the acquisition.     

Willingness to pay for forest amenities: The case of non-industrial owners in the south central United States

We analyze the willingness to pay for non-timber values (NTV) by non-industrial private forest (NIPF) landowners of uneven-age mixed species forest stands in the south central United States. The preferences of NIPF owners are revealed by the way they manage their timber. Many NIPF owners maintain a more diverse and natural stand structure than that of a more profitable even-aged industrial plantation. In so doing, the average NIPF owner was willing to forego 60% of the timber profit for the NTV of their more natural stands compared to a less diverse industrially managed even-aged plantation.     

Can entrepreneurship bring happiness? Evidence from China

This paper investigates the relationship between entrepreneurial activities and the happiness of entrepreneurs. We estimate the effects of entrepreneurial decision-making, business experience and other factors on happiness by using China Household Finance Survey data. Our results derived from maximum likelihood estimation methods indicate that entrepreneurial decision-making and entrepreneurial experience affect household happiness significantly. The family well-being is significantly increased if the family is entrepreneurial, and it will be higher if actively entrepreneurial. Both entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurial investment of time have significantly positive effect on the probability of family well-being. In addition, we find that the mechanism by which entrepreneurship brings happiness to households is through raising household income and wealth, that is, income effects and wealth effects.     

Foreign acquisition,plant survival,and employment growth

Abstract This paper analyzes the effect of foreign acquisition on survival and employment growth of targets using data on Swedish manufacturing plants. We separate targeted plants into those within Swedish MNEs, Swedish exporting non‐MNEs, and purely domestic firms. The results, controlling for possible endogeneity of acquisition using IV and propensity score matching approaches suggest that acquisition by foreign owners increases the lifetime of the acquired plants only if the plant was an exporter. The effect is robust to controlling for domestic acquisitions and differs between horizontal and vertical acquisitions. We find robust positive employment growth effects only for exporters and only if the takeover is vertical.