This study investigates the determinants of changes in corporate ownership and firm failure, taking into account different types of sellers and buyers of control blocks. For a large panel of German corporations we find that firms are more likely to fail or to be sold when performance is poor,...

This study provides new stylized facts on the determinants of corporate failure and acquisition in Germany. It also offers important lessons for the design of empirical studies. We show that firms experiencing failure or acquisition are significantly different from surviving firms on a number of...