Processing plants in eight major food industries were highly productive before being acquired and they significantly improved their labor productivity afterward, Economic Research Service and U.S. Census Bureau researchers found in their analysis of Census data. The plant-level data on...

Empirical analysis of mergers and acquisitions in eight important food industries suggests that workers in acquired plants realized modest increases in employment and wages relative to other workers. Results also show that mergers and acquisitions reduced the likelihood of plant closures while...

This paper investigates the motives for mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. meat products industry from 1977-92. Results show that acquired meat and poultry plants were highly productive before mergers, and that meat plants significantly improved productivity growth in the post-merger periods,...

This paper investigates the motives for mergers and acquisitions in eight U.S. food products industries from1977-92. Results show that acquired plants were highly productive before mergers and realized an increase in productivity growth in the post-merger period.