Mergers and Productivity

Mergers and Productivity offers probing analyses of high-profile mergers in a variety of industries. Focusing on specific acquisitions, it illustrates the remarkable range of contingencies involved in any merger attempt. The authors clearly establish each merger’s presumed objectives and the potential costs and benefits of the acquisition, and place it within the context of the broader industry. Striking conclusions that emerge from these case studies are that merger and acquisition activities were associated with technological or regulatory shocks, and that a merger’s success or failure was dependent upon the acquirer’s thorough understanding of the target, its corporate culture, and its workforce and wage structures prior to acquisition.

Sifting through a wealth of carefully gathered evidence, these papers capture the richness, the complexity, and the economic intangibles inherent in contemporary merger activity in a way that large-scale studies of mergers cannot.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction by Steven N. Kaplan

1. Consolidation in the Medical Care Marketplace: A Case Study from Massachusetts
Jason R. Barro and David M. Cutler
Comment: Paul M. Healy
Comment: Frank R. Lichtenberg

2. The Eclipse of the U.S. Tire Industry
Raghuram Rajan, Paolo Volpin, and Luigi Zingales
Comment: Robert H. Porter

3. Is the Bank Merger Wave of the 1990s Efficient? Lessons from Nine Case Studies
Charles W. Calomiris and Jason Karceski
Comment: Christopher James
Comment Anil K. Kashyap

4. A Clinical Exploration of Value Creation and Destruction in Acquisitions: Organizational Design, Incentives, and Internal Capital Markets
Steven N. Kaplan, Mark L. Mitchell, and Karen H. Wruck
Comment: G. William Schwert
Comment: René M. Stulz

5. Workforce Integration and the Dissipation of Value in Mergers: The Case of USAir’s Acquisition of Piedmont Aviation
Stacey R. Kole and Kenneth Lehn
Comment: Severin Borenstein
Comment: Marc Knez

6. Paths to Creating Value in Pharmaceutical Mergers
David J. Ravenscraft and William F. Long
Comment: Robert Gertner

Contributors

Name Index

Subject Index