Mergers And Economic Efficiency

This book covers the consolidation and merger of corporations and corporate divestiture in the United States.

Mergers And Efficiency: Changes Across Time focuses on one aspect of the corporate finance revolution that restructured Corporate America and led to the longest expansion in U.S. history - changes in rates of merger efficiency. Demystifying this most controversial and dynamic period of U.S. economic history is key to understanding the business, financial and economic innovations that defined the last two decades of the 20th century. In addition, it is important to create a careful empirical understanding of the conditions under which merger activity increased or decreased firm efficiency, industrial productivity, and overall improvements in aggregate output and economic performance.

Mergers and Productivity offers probing analyses of high-profile mergers in a variety of industries. Focusing on specific acquisitions, it illustrates the remarkable range of contingencies involved in any merger attempt. The authors clearly establish each merger's presumed objectives and the potential costs and benefits of the acquisition, and place it within the context of the broader industry. Striking conclusions that emerge from these case studies are that merger and acquisition activities were associated with technological or regulatory shocks, and that a merger's success or failure was dependent upon the acquirer's thorough understanding of the target, its corporate culture, and its workforce and wage structures prior to acquisition. Sifting through a wealth of carefully gathered evidence, these papers capture the richness, the complexity, and the economic intangibles inherent in contemporary merger activity in a way that large-scale studies of mergers cannot.