Pre-empting technology competition through firm acquisitions

This paper shows that firms engage in horizontal mergers and acquisitions to pre-empt competition in technology markets. Making use of the patent application procedure at the European Patent Office we introduce a measure for potential entry barriers in technology markets.     

Mergers and acquisitions as a response to the deregulation of the electric power industry: value creation or value destruction?

Many electric utilities, as a response to the deregulation of the electric power industry, adopted a strategy of acquiring other electric or gas utilities. We examine whether these merger and acquisition strategies create value for the utility shareholders and whether the strategies result in superior post-merger operating and stock-price performance relative to utilities that did not grow through acquisitions. We find little evidence that the mergers and acquisitions created long-term value for a fully diversified investor. Furthermore, the stock price and operating performance of the acquirers under performed the stock price and operating performance of a control portfolio of utilities that did not engage in merger activity.      

Does oil price variability affect ASEAN exchange rates? Evidence from panel cointegration test

Using panel data, this article investigates the long-run relationship between real oil prices and real exchange rates for selected ASEAN countries by utilizing quarterly data from 1973:Q1 to 2013:Q4. The modelling implementation starts with the determination of the stationarity condition of the variables which are found to be integrated of order one. Using Maddala and Wu’s (1999) panel cointegration test, the article finds evidence of cointegration among the variables. The fully modified OLS (FMOLS) and dynamic OLS (DOLS) are then used to estimate the long-run relationship between the variables, followed by applying Toda–Yamamoto causality test. The findings exhibit bidirectional causality between real oil prices and real exchange rates in the long run, where it is highly significant.     

Out of Africa? Locational determinants of South African cross-border mergers and acquisitions

South Africa is the Africa’s biggest source of outward foreign direct investment. This study examines the principal locational motives of cross-border mergers and acquisitions CBMA by South African firms for the 1990–2014 period. The role of inter-country cultural and economic linkages is also studied. Firm-level data of South African merger and acquisition activities in 74 host countries are used to estimate a number of model specifications that control for host-country economic, geographical, cultural and institutional characteristics. Estimations are carried out using random-effects negative binomial panel model. Capturing the host-economy market and enhancing efficiency are found to be the two major motives driving South African corporations’ CBMA activities. Natural resources acquisition seems a less important motive, while strategic assets such as patents and technology do not appear to be attractive. The role of cultural and economic linkages between the home and the host country is found to be substantial. South African firms prefer investing in Africa, particularly in countries bordering South Africa. In light of the study’s findings, South African CBMA activities can be compared with those from other emerging economies.     

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.     

企业并购定价诸方法之选择研究

并购作为企业规模扩张的一种效率较高的形式，被越来越多的企业所采用。而被并购企业价值的确定，即并购定价的准确与否直接决定着并购交易的成功或失败，以及并购后企业绩效的优劣。企业并购的定价方法有多种，备具特色，定价时应当视具体情况选取最为适合的定价方法以适应并购决策的需要。     

中国超市的市场运作和资本运作

在本文中，本人将试着从两个角度出发：一是从商业链的角度出发，整体探讨一下成功的超市如何进行整体的经营运作及其运作过程中他们所把握的规律和理念；二是探讨中国超市与外资超市相比，中国超市在先天资金营养不良的情况下如何进行资本运作采摆脱自身经营管理方面的局限。     

Investment and saving in Angola and the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle

This article analyses the relationship between investment and savings for Angola using the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle, with monthly data from January 2000 to December 2013. Integer and fractional integration and cointegration techniques are employed to investigate the relationship between investment and savings. Several regression specifications are employed, concluding that the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle is not validated for the Angolan economy. Policy implications are derived.     

Do Energy Prices Affect U.S. Investor Sentiment?

The current literature has examined the effect of investor sentiment on energy prices, but no study ever has explored the validity of the reverse question. Therefore, this article explore whether energy prices (i.e., crude oil and natural gas prices) affect U.S. investor sentiment, using the methodology of quantile regression. The empirical results document that controlling for a number of U.S. macroeconomic and financial factors, there exists a statistically significant association between oil and natural gas prices and investor sentiment. However, only natural gas prices appear to retain their statistical significance over the majority of quantiles. These findings received robust support under alternative measures of the investor sentiment index.     

An investigation into the dynamic relationship between international and China’s crude oil prices

This article studies the dynamic relationship between international (WTI, Brent and Dubai) and domestic (Da Qing) crude oil prices in China using threshold cointegration method. We find evidence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between each pair of international and Da Qing oil prices, favouring the market integration hypothesis. We also estimate asymmetric adjustments under the momentum threshold autoregressive (M-TAR) specification in a TVECM, and the results show that adjustments to eliminate disequilibrium happen faster when oil price spread increases than when it decreases. The long-run and short-run Granger causality tests support the notion that China has influence on the international oil markets. The results imply that China should open up its domestic and imported oil markets, and also establish a well-functioning crude oil futures market, as they are essential for arbitrage and hedging strategies.     

高新技术企业并购研究——基于战略目标

目前全球已进入一个新的技术竞争时代,全球技术资源状态与研发体系以及技术变更速度的加快已经改变了原来的产业竞争方式,以速度为支撑的技术竞争已经成为主流,通过并购获得技术优势成为新的选择。高新技术企业凭借其高成长性和未来预期的高收益性目前已成为全球并购市场的焦点。企业基于战略来选择并购目标可以从根本上保证目标企业与自己的战略匹配。文章对高新技术行业发展的特点与规律进行研究,发现高新技术企业广泛大量并购技术型小企业是由高新技术行业的发展规律决定的,高新技术企业收购的实质是收购人才,在不同发展阶段其并购的动因与目标也不同。通过对思科的并购战略及并购目标选择规律进行研究,以期为我国高新技术企业并购目标选择提供借鉴与启示。     

The intertemporal relation between government revenue and expenditure in the United Kingdom, 1750 to 2004

We examine the intertemporal relation between government revenue and expenditure in the UK during 1750 to 2004. We pay particular attention to long run trends by applying a battery of unit root and cointegration techniques to the data, and we use a modified Granger causality test on data spans organized around structural breaks in the series. The results suggest that, allowing for structural breaks, UK real revenue and spending are I(1) series and cointegrated and that Granger causality runs from government spending to revenue. As such, the ‘spend-tax’ hypothesis appears to best characterize the long run intertemporal relation between government revenue and spending in the UK.     

多参与人条件下并购中博弈决策机制研究

传统并购决策考虑的是决策者如何在并购的可行方案中选出最优或次优策略,很少涉及到当对手策略变化时所选的策略是否最优。并购决策是多人相关决策,需要在多个利益相关者相互影响的环境中研究并购策略的合理性。需要考虑主并企业内部股东和管理层,主并企业与政府、竞争对手和目标企业多个利益相关者之间的相互影响。由于股东和经营管理者利益的不同,股东须通过设计适当的激励和约束机制,使经营管理者个人利益与股东利益协调统一。企业并购决策是竞争对手参与并购可能性以及目标企业对主并企业、竞争对手参与并购信念的依存函数。政府是否批准并购项目与项目的前景属性相关。目标企业的所有制形式对并购有重要影响,目标企业是国有企业,管理层和员工的利益不可忽视,对于非国有企业,主要考虑的是预期收益。     

Foreign direct investment and the euro: the first five years

This paper assesses the main influences on foreign direct investment(FDI) flows between the major economies in the first five yearsof economic and monetary union (EMU). Using previously unpublisheddata specially provided by Eurostat, it concludes that the hugewave of FDI that reached the Eurozone after EMU was largelya manifestation of the end-of-century takeover boom, a globalphenomenon of which the euro was only a subsidiary cause. Butmuch of the boom in euro economies' FDI disappears if flowsto and from the Belgium–Luxembourg Economic Union (BLEU)(dominated by transhipment via Luxembourg) are removed. On thatbasis, intra-zone FDI turns out to have been weak after EMU,both in relation to previous trends and as a share of majoreconomies' global FDI flows. However, the euro appears to havegiven a modest stimulus to inflows from other major investingeconomies, while the UK share of the latters' outflows has fallenmoderately in the post-EMU period. The policy implications arediscussed.     

The role of rare earth prices for consumer prices: an ignored factor?

The article explores the role of a new determinant that accounts for driving consumer prices, i.e. rare earth prices. Rare earths are used for many advanced manufacturing and military technologies. Performing a number of panel methodological approaches, panel cointegration findings support the initial insight of the authors and illustrate a positive effect on consumer prices across all rare earths.     

The effects of mergers and acquisitions on the firm size distribution

This paper provides new empirical evidence on the effects of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on the shape of the firm size distribution, by using data of the population of manufacturing firms in the Netherlands. Our analysis shows that M&As do not affect the size distribution when we consider the entire population of firms. When we focus on the firms involved in an M&A event, we observe a shift of the firm size distribution towards larger sizes. Firm size distribution becomes more concentrated around the mean, less skewed to the right hand side, and thinner at the tails as a whole. The shift toward higher sizes due to M&A is not uniform but affects firms of different sizes in different ways. While the number of firms in the lower tail decreased, the number of firms in the central size classes increased substantially and outweighed the increase in the number (and mean size) of firms in the upper tail of the distribution (consequently the overall market concentration measured by the Herfindahl index declines). M&As lead to a departure from log-normality of the firm size distribution, suggesting that external growth does not follow Gibrat’s law. Our counterfactual analysis highlights that only internal growth does not affect the shape of the size distribution of firms. On the contrary, it suggests that the change in the size distribution is almost entirely due to the external growth of the firms.

Testing fractional integration with monthly data

Seasonal roots can help to explain the seasonal fluctuations in macroeconomic time series. In this paper we concentrate on monthly data and look at different versions of Robinson’s (1994) tests for testing unit roots and other fractionally integrated hypotheses when the root is located at zero and/or at the seasonal frequencies. A Monte Carlo experiment is carried out to check the power of these tests against different fractional alternatives, and an empirical application, using Spanish monthly data for the consumer price index, is also carried out in the article.