The question of whether or not mergers and acquisitions have helped to enhance banks' efficiency and profitability has … problems involved. In this study, we analyze the effect of German bank mergers in the period 1995-2000 on banks' profitability … and cost efficiency. We suggest a new matching strategy to control for the selection effects arising from the fact that …

, we find that the operating efficiency of the acquirers decreases around the acquisition, and up to three years after …-price return is not significantly associated with acquirer’s operating efficiency post-acquisition. Therefore, investors should be … merger efficiency gains. …

transition from a centrally planned to a market economy. This paper examines a key feature of this transition – the privatization … primary data from a variety of sources, we study how privatization of listed SOEs affects employment, wages, profits and other … aspects of economic performance at the firm level. Our major finding is that privatization results in substantial downsizing …