One of the most conspicuous features of mergers is that they come in waves, and that these waves are correlated with increases in share prices and price/earnings ratios. We test four hypotheses that have been advanced to explain merger waves: the industry shocks, q-, overvaluation and managerial discretion hypotheses. The first two are neoclassical in that they assume that managers maximize profits, mergers create wealth, and the capital market is efficient. The last two, behavioral hypotheses relax these assumptions in different ways. We test the four hypotheses by estimating models of the amounts of assets acquired by firms, models that identify the characteristics of targets, and estimates of the returns to acquirers' shareholders. Although some support is found for each of the four hypotheses, most of the evidence favors the two behavioral hypotheses.
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Paper provided by Utrecht School of Economics in its series Working Papers with number
05-15.
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Klaus Gugler & Dennis C. Mueller & B. Burçin Yurtoglu, 2006.
"The Determinants of Merger Waves,"
CIG Working Papers
SP II 2006-01, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
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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.:
Erard, Brian & Schaller, Huntley, 2002.
"Acquisitions and Investment,"
Economica,
London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 69(275), pages 391-413, August.
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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.)
Albert Banal-Estañol & Paul Heidhues & Rainer Nitsche & Jo Seldeslachts, 2006.
"Merger Clusters during Economic Booms,"
CIG Working Papers
SP II 2006-17, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
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Albert Banal-Estañol & Jo Seldeslachts, 2005.
"Merger Failures,"
CIG Working Papers
SP II 2005-09, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
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