This paper investigates the merger wave hypothesis for the US and the UK employing a Markov regime switching model …. Using quarterly data covering the last thirty years, for the US, we identify the beginning of a merger wave in the mid 1990s … but not the much-discussed 1980s merger wave. We argue that the latter finding can be ascribed to the refined methods of …

waiting times as a result of the merger is larger if the hospitals are more profit-oriented. This result is arguably confirmed … long panel of data on hospital mergers in the English NHS, where we find that the effects of a merger on waiting times …