We examine the effects of mergers on the returns to acquiring companies' shareholders for a large sample of companies from both Anglo-Saxon and non-Anglo-Saxon countries over the 1980s and 1990s. With the important exception of Japan, we find similar patterns of returns across both types of...

Despite the large number of event studies of mergers that have been undertaken, considerable disagreement still exists over whether mergers increase the value of the merging firms, and if so why. Most event studies measure the average returns to the acquired and acquiring companies' shareholders...