Existing theory suggests that, in an unregulated market for corporate control, the level of takeovers is suboptimal because shareholders do not receive the full benefit from them. However, existing theory neglects that the threat of takeover may divert managerial effort from productive to...

This paper highlights the role of takeover defenses in the acquisition process. If managerial defensive effort is fixed, the unregulated level of takeover activity is lower than socially desirable since shareholders regard the financial incentives given to raiders to stimulate takeover activity...