(Translated by https://www.hiragana.jp/)
Firms Merge in Response to Constraints
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/5744.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Firms Merge in Response to Constraints

Author

Listed:
  • Boone, Jan

Abstract

Theoretical IO models of horizontal mergers and acquisitions make the critical assumption of efficiency gains. Without efficiency gains, these models predict either that mergers are not profitable or that mergers are welfare reducing. A problem here is the empirical observation that on average mergers do not create efficiency gains. We analyze mergers in a model where firms cannot equalize marginal costs and marginal revenues over all dimensions in their action space due to constraints. In this type of model mergers can still be profitable and welfare enhancing while they create a loss in efficiency. The merger allows a firm to relax constraints. Further, this set up is consistent with the following stylized facts on mergers and acquisitions: M\&A's happen when new opportunities have opened up or industries have become more competitive (due to liberalization), they happen in waves, shareholders of the acquired firms gain while shareholders of the acquiring firms lose from the acquisition. Standard IO merger models do not explain these empirical observations.

Suggested Citation

  • Boone, Jan, 2006. "Firms Merge in Response to Constraints," CEPR Discussion Papers 5744, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5744
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP5744
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lars-Hendrik Röller & Johan Stennek & Frank Verboven, 2006. "Efficiency Gains from Mergers," Chapters, in: Fabienne IIzkovitz & Roderick Meiklejohn (ed.), European Merger Control, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Gilchrist, Simon & Himmelberg, Charles P., 1995. "Evidence on the role of cash flow for investment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 541-572, December.
    3. Mitchell, Mark L. & Mulherin, J. Harold, 1996. "The impact of industry shocks on takeover and restructuring activity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 193-229, June.
    4. Enrique Schroth & Dezsö Szalay, 2010. "Cash Breeds Success: The Role of Financing Constraints in Patent Races," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 14(1), pages 73-118.
    5. Jan Boone, 2000. "Competitive Pressure: The Effects on Investments in Product and Process Innovation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(3), pages 549-569, Autumn.
    6. Gugler, Klaus & Mueller, Dennis C. & Yurtoglu, B. Burcin & Zulehner, Christine, 2003. "The effects of mergers: an international comparison," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 625-653, May.
    7. Fridolfsson, Sven-Olof & Stennek, Johan, 2005. "Hold-up of anti-competitive mergers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(9-10), pages 753-775, December.
    8. Sara B. Moeller & Frederik P. Schlingemann & René M. Stulz, 2005. "Wealth Destruction on a Massive Scale? A Study of Acquiring‐Firm Returns in the Recent Merger Wave," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(2), pages 757-782, April.
    9. McAfee, R Preston & Simons, Joseph J & Williams, Michael A, 1992. "Horizontal Mergers in Spatially Differentiated Noncooperative Markets," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 349-358, December.
    10. Stephen W. Salant & Sheldon Switzer & Robert J. Reynolds, 1983. "Losses From Horizontal Merger: The Effects of an Exogenous Change in Industry Structure on Cournot-Nash Equilibrium," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(2), pages 185-199.
    11. 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.
    12. Bulow, Jeremy I & Geanakoplos, John D & Klemperer, Paul D, 1985. "Multimarket Oligopoly: Strategic Substitutes and Complements," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(3), pages 488-511, June.
    13. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1998. "Capital-Market Imperfections and Investment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 193-225, March.
    14. Perry, Martin K & Porter, Robert H, 1985. "Oligopoly and the Incentive for Horizontal Merger," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 219-227, March.
    15. Gregor Andrade & Mark Mitchell & Erik Stafford, 2001. "New Evidence and Perspectives on Mergers," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 103-120, Spring.
    16. Bart Lambrecht & Stewart C. Myers, 2005. "A Theory of Takeovers and Disinvestment," NBER Working Papers 11082, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Dario Focarelli & Fabio Panetta, 2003. "Are Mergers Beneficial to Consumers? Evidence from the Market for Bank Deposits," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1152-1172, September.
    18. Dutz, Mark A., 1989. "Horizontal mergers in declining industries : Theory and evidence," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 11-33, March.
    19. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1988. "Value Maximization and the Acquisition Process," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 7-20, Winter.
    20. Bart M. Lambrecht & Stewart C. Myers, 2007. "A Theory of Takeovers and Disinvestment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(2), pages 809-845, April.
    21. Roll, Richard, 1986. "The Hubris Hypothesis of Corporate Takeovers," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(2), pages 197-216, April.
    22. Whited, Toni M, 1992. "Debt, Liquidity Constraints, and Corporate Investment: Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1425-1460, September.
    23. Robert W. Crandall & Clifford Winston, 2005. "Does antitrust policy improve consumer welfare? Assessing the evidence," Chapters, in: Colin Robinson (ed.), Governments, Competition and Utility Regulation, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    24. R. Glenn Hubbard & Darius Palia, 1999. "A Reexamination of the Conglomerate Merger Wave in the 1960s: An Internal Capital Markets View," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(3), pages 1131-1152, June.
    25. Miklós-Thal, Jeanine & Rey, Patrick & Vergé, Thibaud, 2010. "Vertical relations," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 345-349, July.
    26. Fabio Panetta & Dario Focarelli, 2003. "Are Mergers Beneficial to Consumers? Evidence from the Italian Market for Bank Deposits," CEIS Research Paper 10, Tor Vergata University, CEIS.
    27. Agrawal, Anup & Jaffe, Jeffrey F & Mandelker, Gershon N, 1992. "The Post-merger Performance of Acquiring Firms: A Re-examination of an Anomaly," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1605-1621, September.
    28. Douglas Gale & Martin Hellwig, 1985. "Incentive-Compatible Debt Contracts: The One-Period Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(4), pages 647-663.
    29. Raymond Deneckere & Carl Davidson, 1985. "Incentives to Form Coalitions with Bertrand Competition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(4), pages 473-486, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joseph A. Clougherty & Tomaso Duso, 2010. "Using Rival Effects to Identify Synergies and Improve Merger Typologies," CIG Working Papers SP II 2010-13, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
    2. Damien Neven & Hans Zenger, 2008. "Ex Post Evaluation of Enforcement: A Principal-Agent Perspective," De Economist, Springer, vol. 156(4), pages 477-490, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martynova, M. & Renneboog, L.D.R., 2005. "Takeover Waves : Triggers, Performance and Motives," Discussion Paper 2005-029, Tilburg University, Tilburg Law and Economic Center.
    2. Boone, J., 2006. "Firms Merge in Response to Constraints," Other publications TiSEM 758c347a-a2e4-4438-b365-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Duso, Tomaso & Gugler, Klaus & Yurtoglu, Burcin B., 2011. "How effective is European merger control?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 980-1006.
    4. Martynova, Marina & Renneboog, Luc, 2008. "A century of corporate takeovers: What have we learned and where do we stand?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(10), pages 2148-2177, October.
    5. Sven‐Olof Fridolfsson & Johan Stennek, 2010. "Industry Concentration and Welfare: On the Use of Stock Market Evidence from Horizontal Mergers," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(308), pages 734-750, October.
    6. Martynova, M., 2006. "The market for corporate control and corporate governance regulation in Europe," Other publications TiSEM 8651e281-4914-41f2-ac14-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. 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).
    8. Amrita Ray Chaudhuri, 2014. "Cross-Border Mergers and Market Segmentation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(2), pages 229-257, June.
    9. Gugler, Klaus & Szücs, Florian, 2016. "Merger externalities in oligopolistic markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 230-254.
    10. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2007_017 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Joseph A. Clougherty & Tomaso Duso, 2010. "Using Rival Effects to Identify Synergies and Improve Merger Typologies," CIG Working Papers SP II 2010-13, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
    12. Onur A. Koska & Ilke Onur & Frank Stähler, 2018. "The scope of auctions in the presence of downstream interactions and information externalities," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 125(2), pages 107-136, October.
    13. Becher, David & Jensen, Tyler K. & Liu, Tingting, 2020. "Acquisitions and funding conditions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    14. Sven-Olof Fridolfsson & Johan Stennek, 2005. "Why Mergers Reduce Profits And Raise Share Prices-A Theory Of Preemptive Mergers," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(5), pages 1083-1104, September.
    15. Jozsef Molnar, 2002. "Preemptive Horizontal Mergers: Theory and Evidence," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 0213, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    16. Oliver Budzinski & Jürgen-Peter Kretschmer, 2016. "Implications of Unprofitable Horizontal Mergers: A Positive External Effect Does Not Suffice To Clear A Merger!," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 10(1), March.
    17. Jrisy Motis, 2007. "Mergers and Acquisitions Motives," Working Papers 0730, University of Crete, Department of Economics.
    18. Jozsef Molnar, 2002. "Preemptive Horizontal Mergers: Theory and Evidence," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 0213, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    19. Kejriwal, Mohitosh & Perron, Pierre, 2008. "Data Dependent Rules For Selection Of The Number Of Leads And Lags In The Dynamic Ols Cointegrating Regression," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(5), pages 1425-1441, October.
    20. Larry D. Qiu & Wen Zhou, 2007. "Merger waves: a model of endogenous mergers," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(1), pages 214-226, March.
    21. Robert Town & Douglas Wholey & Roger Feldman & Lawton R. Burns, 2006. "The Welfare Consequences of Hospital Mergers," NBER Working Papers 12244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pro/anti-competitive mergers; Efficiency defence; Constraints; Merger waves; Deregulation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • L40 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5744. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.