This technical note analyzes the competition in the banking sector in Denmark. It reveals that Denmark has a fairly competitive and efficient banking sector. Measured by various indicators, efficiency of banking intermediation has been improving in recent years. The banking sector has become...

The technical note on Mexico’s Financial Sector Assessment Program update analyzes that the private pension system’s regulator in Mexico has introduced innovate rules. Mexico, as with many other countries in Latin America, has adopted an individual capitalization pension system....

We examine the rewards for experience and ability in the director labor market. We show that large acquisitions are associated with significantly higher numbers of subsequent board seats for the acquiring CEO, target CEO, and the directors. We also find that, in the case of acquisitions,...

The combination of structural remedies and efficiency gains in a merger may lead to pro-competitive outcomes, thus maintaining pre-merger prices. Two types of efficiencies are necessary. The first corresponds to a flatter marginal cost function, the second to a decrease in the intercept of the...

I demonstrate that acquisitions are accompanied by large, permanent increases in Chief Executive Officer (CEO) compensation, which create strong financial incentives for CEOs to pursue acquisitions earlier in their career. Accordingly, I document that a firm's acquisition propensity is...

Prior stock price peaks of targets affect several aspects of merger and acquisition activity. Offer prices are biased toward recent peak prices although they are economically unremarkable. An offer's probability of acceptance jumps discontinuously when it exceeds a peak price. Conversely, bidder...

Prior work has established that entrenched managers make value-decreasing acquisitions. In this study, we determine how they destroy that value. Overall, we find that value destruction by entrenched managers comes from a combination of factors. First, they disproportionately avoid private...