Mergers and acquisitions are clearly the favorite corporate growth strategy of this generation's executive teams. But there is little evidence that such strategies have paid off for the acquiring companies' shareholders-and many transactions have proved disastrous for the careers of the...

When a major acquisition is announced, investors try to understand where the value is going to come from and whether the acquirer has a plan to achieve that value. Deals are often brought to market with one big synergy number and a statement that the deal will be "accretive" to earnings. The...

We use investment-cash flow regressions to show that both asymmetric-information and agency problems are more severe in Continental Europe than in the Anglo-Saxon countries leading to too little investment by firms with attractive investment opportunities and too much by those with poor...

This indispensable Handbook examines both economic and legal aspects of competition policy and industrial organization. It provides a scholarly review of the state of the art regarding economic theory, empirical evidence and standards of legal evaluation. The book aims primarily at furthering...

This book makes a valuable, analytical contribution to recent debates on the ongoing institutional changes occurring within the European Union. It provides a comprehensive and diverse insight into a variety of areas, including in-depth studies of fiscal, monetary and voting issues, to help...

This two-volume anthology contains many of the classic articles from the public choice/rational politics field and includes a new introduction prepared by the editor.

The quest for benefit from existing wealth or by seeking privileged benefit through influence over policy is known as rent seeking. Much rent seeking activity involves government and political decisions and is therefore in the domain of political economy, although it can also take place in...

We test the closeness of the correspondence between the preferences of EU citizens and their delegations to the European Parliament using data on roll-call votes. Differences in EU citizens' preferences are captured using a variety of country characteristics including bilateral country dummy...

The size of the government sector has grown relative to the private sector throughout the developed democratic countries of the world. This growth has been particularly pronounced since World War II. Although government size has grown in every country, a wide range of relative sizes existed at...