"Spending on M&A has, in aggregate, grown so fast that it has even overtaken capital expenditure on increasing and maintaining physical assets. Yet McKinsey, the leading management consultancy, reports that "Anyone who has researched merger success rates knows that roughly 70% fail". The idea...

This paper attempts to tease out some of the reasons why the history of M&A accounting has been so fraught. It compares the different M&A accounting regimes which have been tried over time in UK, US and international standards. It illustrates the quantitative impact of alternative accounting...

This paper explores some consequences for economic efficiency of creative accounting practices by merging companies. It assumes semi-strong information efficiency in the markets for capital and for corporate control; and/or the use of executive contracts relating pay to accounting profit.Ahead...