Commentators on the private equity industry often claim that favorable tax treatment gives private equity firms advantages in the market for corporate control. But we show that tax advantages do not affect the equilibrium ownership of corporate assets when acquisition costs are fully deductible...

In this paper, we argue that fundamental reforms of the Swedish business sector can explain the remarkable productivity and employment growth that followed the deep economic crisis in Sweden in the early 1990s. In the 1970s and 1980s, Sweden had one of the most regulated business sectors in the...

This paper proposes a cross-border M&A model with financially constrained owners in which the identity of the buyer and seller can be determined. We show that policies blocking foreign acquisitions to protect the domestic industry can be counterproductive. Foreign acquisition can increase the...

Recent studies document a 30-year decline in various measures of entrepreneurship in the United States. In contrast, using detailed Swedish employer-employee data over the period 1990-2013, we find no decline in Swedish entrepreneurial activity. Aggregate net job creation is greatest among the...

How can a country improve the productivity growth in its business sector and reach its growth potential? Sweden during the 1970–2010 period can serve as an example to help other countries understand how to efficiently reform a business sector. In the 1990s, Sweden implemented a reform package...

Within the policy debate, there is a fear that large incumbent firms buy small firms' inventions to ensure that they are not used in the market. We show that such "acquisitions for sleep" can occur if and only if the quality of a process invention is small; otherwise, the entry profit will be...

Private equity firms (PE firms) have become common owners of established firms in concentrated markets. We show that the threat of a PE acquisition can trigger incumbent mergers in an otherwise mergerstable industry. This can help antitrust authorities maximize consumer surplus because...

When and how do entrepreneurs sell their inventions? To address this issue, we develop an endogenous entry-sale asymmetric information oligopoly model. We show that lowquality inventions are sold directly or used for own entry. Inventors who sell post-entry use entry to credibly reveal...