The paper questions the common view that share price increases of firms involved in hostile takeovers measure efficiency gains from acquisitions. Even if such gains exist, most of the increase in the combined value of the target and the acquirer is likely to come from stakeholder wealth losses, such as declines in value of subcontractors' firm-specific capital or employees' human capital. The use of event studies to gauge wealth creation in takeovers is unjustified. The paper also suggests a theory of managerial behavior, in which hiring and entrenching trustworthy managers enables shareholders to commit to upholding implicit contracts with stakeholders. Hostile takeovers are an innovation allowing shareholders to renege on such contracts ex post, against managers' will. On this view, shareholder gains are redistributions from stakeholders, and can in the long run result in deterioration of trust necessary for the functioning of the corporation.
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.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
2342.
Length: Date of creation: May 1989 Date of revision: Publication status: published relationship to a non-chapter. This should not happen. Please contact NBER. Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2342
Contact details of provider: Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. Phone: 617-868-3900 Email: Web page: http://www.nber.org More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Related research
Keywords:
Other versions of this item:
Chapter
Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers, 1988.
"Breach of Trust in Hostile Takeovers,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Corporate Takeovers: Causes and Consequences, pages 33-68
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!]
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.:
Milton Harris & Bengt Holmstrom, 1981.
"A Theory of Wage Dynamics,"
Discussion Papers
488, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
[Downloadable!]
Cited by: (explanations, 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.) This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.