Largely constant average acquirer returns over the past four decades mask fundamental changes in the takeover market. Controlling for bidder composition, the common component of acquirer returns has increased by five percentage points relative to the 1980s. Offsetting this increase, the average...

We examine whether corporate rivals react to industry-specific competition-shocks by increasing product differentiation or, alternatively, by lowering differentiation to capture scale-economies. As rival reactions affect intraindustry cash-flow correlations, these two hypotheses imply...