This paper presents some ideas about determinants of merger waves and some evidence on their effect on profitability and employment. A brief survey of previous merger waves and an analysis of the recent one give support to the hypothesis that sectoral shocks are at the root of merger waves....

Local labor market shocks are difficult to insure against. Using confidential micro data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Longitudinal Business Database, we document that firms redistribute the employment impacts of local demand shocks across regions through their internal networks of...

Efficiency is considered a key factor when evaluating a bank's performance. Moreover, efficiency enhancement is an explicit policy objective in the Single Market Directive of the European Commission. But efficiency improvements may come at the expense of deteriorating bank profits and excessive...

We use a firm-level panel of 13 European countries to assess how a sector-specific shock propagates through technological linkages across innovating firms in the rest of the economy. We find that the competition shock to the European textile sector, induced by the 2001 removal of import quotas...