Cross Border Mergers in the OECD: A Panel Data Study

Despite the rapid rise in cross-border mergers and acquisitions in the past twenty years, there has been little attention paid to what determines their patterns and, in particular, what influences their behaviour over time. Employing a panel database this paper models the behaviour of foreign mergers in the main OECD countries for the period 1990-2002. It would appear that variables from both the FDI literature and that on domestic merger activity have significant influences on changes in activity. Stock market activity, factor costs and growth are all found to play an important role....