This article provides a comprehensive overview of academic research literature on Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), organizing it along an objective and holistic structure of topics. It investigates what has been discussed on a very high level, outlines where specific topics have been mostly...

We document firm-level changes following mergers and acquisitions (M&As) which mirror aggregate shifts in the US labor market observed in response to greater use of automation. Specifically, we show post M&A establishments become less routine task intensive, more high-skilled, and pay more...

We document a strong decline in corporate-diversification activity since the late 1970's, and we develop a dynamic model that explains this pattern, both qualitatively and quantitatively. The key feature of the model is that synergies endogenously decline with technological specialization,...

Documenting the US antitrust review process for M&As in detail, we unveil that regulatory costs and risks are significant and that mitigating these risks via lobbying by acquirers may benefit shareholders. Our results show that an adverse antitrust review outcome leads to a decline of 2.8...

Managers frequently project high synergistic gains when announcing M&As. This paper analyzes when promised synergies are value-relevant. Using text analytical methods, we only find a positive relationship between synergy projections and announcement returns when promised numerical projections...

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) have become a central instrument of organizational development. Consequently, research on M&A has developed into a complex research area of management science in recent years. However, the different perspectives are so heterogeneous that a holistic view is often...