Purpose - Because systemically important banks' takeovers in the US were expected to contain the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) but were found to have imposed large cost on shareholders, this paper examines the effectiveness of these acquisitions during the GFC and investigates what went...

We analyze data on tens of thousands of alternating-offer, business-to-business negotiations in the wholesale used-car market, with each negotiation mediated (over the phone) by a third-party company. The data shows the identity of the employee mediating the negotiations. We find that who...