Our model reconciles seemingly contradictory empirical evidence on venture capital activity. Despite the venture capital-backed companies' superior long-run performance, stock markets react more negatively to their acquisitions than to other private acquisitions. Moreover, venture capital...

Private equity firms are an important part of the industrial restructuring process. We argue that the key is temporary ownership. Buying to sell induces aggressive restructuring since the equilibrium trade sale price increases both because the profits of the acquiring incumbent increase and the...

We find that reduced foreign corporate taxes may lead to inefficient foreign acquisitions if complementarities between foreign and domestic assets are low, and to efficient foreign acquisitions if such complementarities are high. Moreover, with large complementarities, foreign acquisitions can...

Private equity backed firms have more leverage, more intense compensation contracts, and higher productivity than comparable non-private equity backed firms. We develop a theory of buyouts in oligopolistic markets that ties these facts to an explicit focus on buying assets with the intent of...