Does director gender influence CEO empire building? Does it affect the bid premium paid for target firms? Less overconfident female directors less overestimate merger gains. As a result, firms with female directors are less likely to make acquisitions and if they do, pay lower bid premia. Using...

The objective of this paper is to use laboratory experiments to test the dynamic theory of free riding among the target shareholders during a takeover attempt. We construct our experiments to reflect the dynamics of unconditional bidding suggested by Harrington and Prokop (1993) and the dynamics...

We review historical and current research on mergers and acquisitions. The literature is extensive. After a discussion of earlier survey articles (our “survey of the surveys”), we provide a review of more than 120 M&A related-articles published in leading finance journals since 2011. A basic...

This Paper argues that once undistorted shareholder choice is ensured – which can be done by making it necessary for hostile bidders to win a vote of shareholder support – boards should not have veto power over takeover bids. The Paper considers all of the arguments that have been offered...