This paper highlights the role of takeover defenses in the acquisition process. If managerial defensive effort is fixed, the unregulated level of takeover activity is lower than socially desirable since shareholders regard the financial incentives given to raiders to stimulate takeover activity as a cost, while society views them as a transfer. We show that this result no longer holds if defensive effort is variable -- the unregulated market for corporate control will generate excessive takeovers. One implication of our analysis is that in the presence of substantial anti-takeover related expenditures the gains from takeover will be overestimated. These gains include the benefits from dismantling defenses which were installed because of the takeover threat.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Length: 42 pages Date of creation: 01 Jul 1997 Date of revision:
06 Oct 2000 Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:351
Contact details of provider: Postal: Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill MA 02467 USA Phone: 617-552-3670 Fax: +1-617-552-2308 Email: Web page: http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC/ More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F Baum).
Find related papers by JEL classification: G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: