Shareholder Value Creation in European M&As

This paper looks at the value generated to shareholders by the announcement of mergers and acquisitions involving firms in the European Union over the period 1998–2000. Cumulative abnormal shareholder returns due to the announcement of a merger reflect a revision of the expected value resulting from future synergies or wealth redistribution among stakeholders. Target firm shareholders receive on average a statistically significant cumulative abnormal return of 9% in a one‐month window centred on the announcement date. Acquirers’ cumulative abnormal returns are null on average. When distinguishing in terms of the geographical and sectoral dimensions of the merger deals, our main finding is that mergers in industries that had previously been under government control or that are still heavily regulated generate lower value than M&A announcements in unregulated industries. This low value creation in regulated industries becomes significantly negative when the merger involves two firms from different countries and is primarily due to the lower positive return that shareholders of the target firm enjoy upon the announcement of the merger. This evidence is consistent with the existence of obstacles (such as cultural, legal, or transaction barriers) to the successful conclusion of this type of transaction, which lessen the probability of the merger actually being completed as announced and, therefore, reduce its expected value.     

The impact of product diversification strategy on the corporate performance of large Spanish firms

We analyze the impact of product diversification on performance. This topic has been discussed in the literature, and there is no consensus so far as to the significance or the direction of the impact. Performance is measured using Tobin's q for a sample of 103 large, non-financial Spanish firms (1992–1995). Diversification is measured by means of a categorical variable, as suggested by Varadarajan. The principal results indicate that the firms with intermediate levels of product diversification have the highest performance, while the firms with low and high levels of diversification show significantly lower performance, which performance is not significantly different between them.     

On some criteria for the formulation and testing of economic growth models

This paper presents a methodology for the formulation and testing of economic growth models. The model selected includes two production sectors with physical and human capital accumulation. These capital stocks are associated with spillover effects in the production of the physical good and in the accumulation of both factors.     

Threshold cointegration and nonlinear adjustment between goods and services inflation in the United States

In this paper, we model the long-run relationship between goods and services inflation for the United States over the period 1968:1–2003:3. Our empirical methodology makes use of recent developments on threshold cointegration that consider the possibility of a nonlinear relationship between the two inflation series. According to our results, the null hypothesis of linear cointegration would be rejected in favor of a two-regime threshold cointegration model. Consequently, we could expect a cointegrating relationship only when the divergence between services inflation and goods inflation is above the threshold point estimate.