One of the most conspicuous features of mergers is that they come in waves that are correlated with increases in share prices and price/earnings ratios. We use a natural way to discriminate between pure stock market influences on firm decisions and other influences by examining merger patterns...

We systematically analyse the effects of mergers and acquisitions on the demand for labour in the USA and Europe. We do not find adverse effects of mergers on labour demand in the USA, however we do find negative effects in Europe of the order of -10% compared to pre-merger levels. We attribute...