status of the target firm (public or private), takeover strategy (focus or diversification), amongst other factors ….In addition, we investigate the shortterm wealth effects of 2,419 European mergers and acquisitions.We find announcement effects …

, diversification discount, frequency and returns of diversifying mergers, and frequency of refocusing activity …We document a strong decline in corporate-diversification activity since the late 1970's, and we develop a dynamic …

This work presents an equilibrium model of diversification through merger formation. Due to moral hazard problems … interest and non-interest terms of credit). Furthermore, the model offers a rationale for diversification that is immune to the … diversification neutrality result and furthermore, explains why diversified companies trade at a discount relative to their non …

We analyze the takeover premiums paid for a sample of European bank mergers between 1997 and 2007. We find that …

This paper studies the impact of European bank mergers and acquisitions on changes in key safety and soundness measures …

employ a unique data set of approximately 1,000 mergers to analyze the determinants of bank mergers. We use data on the … regulatory intervention history to distinguish between distressed and non-distressed mergers. We find that, among merging banks …-distressed mergers have worse CAMEL profiles than our control group. In fact, non-distressed mergers may be motivated by the desire to …

and targets and use appropriate difference-in-difference estimation methods to single out the causal effect of mergers on …