Recent empirical papers report a declining trend in the cumulative abnormal return (CAR) of acquirers during an Mamp;A program. Does this necessarily imply that acquiring CEOs are infected by hubris and are not learning from previous mistakes? We first confirm the existence of this declining...

This paper provides an analysis of legal insider trading on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange by using data published in the register held by the AFM, the dutch financial markets authority. The sample includes 822 transactions executed by corporate insiders between the beginning of January...

Recent empirical research has shown that, from deal to deal, serial acquirers' cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) are declining. This has been most often attributed to CEOs hubris. We question this interpretation. Our theoretical analysis shows that (i) a declining CAR from deal to deal is not...

Why do regulatory authorities scrutinize mergers and acquisitions? The authorities themselves claim to be combating monopoly power and protecting consumers. But the last two decades of empirical research has found little supporting evidence for such motives. An alternative is that Mamp;A...

The recent important transformations of the banking sector, especially through numerous mergers and acquisitions, both in Europe and in the USA, have raised serious concerns for the financing of small business firms (SBF). Indeed, SBF are known to be heavily dependent of this financing channel...

Many takeovers occur after one-on-one negotiations, which suggests a troubling lack of competition. We seek to determine whether acquirers in such friendly deals are truly insulated from competitive pressures. We study two countervailing influences: (1) potential but unobserved latent...

Acquisitions, mergers and other business agreements are facing increasing regulatory scrutiny, even when they are among firms domiciled outside the territory of the regulatory authorities. Some noteworthy recent examples involve mergers between American firms that were prohibited by regulators...

Does legal insider trading contribute to market efficiency? Using refinements proposed in the recent microstructure literature, we analyzed the information content of legal insider trading. We used data on 2,110 companies subject to 59,244 aggregated daily insider trades between January 1995 and...

Knowledge gleaned from previous acquisitions may confer valuation expertise and other benefits. But numerous acquisitions also entail costs, due to problems of incorporating diverse units into an ever larger firm. Such benefits and costs are not directly observable from outside the firm. This...

Mergers and acquisitions offer a framework for shedding new light on the stock market performance of socially responsible investments (SRI). We use Innovest's Intangible Value Assessment (IVA) ratings as a measure of firms' ability to cope with social and environmental risks. The IVA ratings...