This study examines how the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) environment affects gains to merging firms and their industry rivals. Using a large sample of Canadian acquisitions announcements from 1994 to 2009, we find that during M&A, the shareholders of Canadian merging firms experience indeed...

Overbidding implies a failure to adequately account for the winner's curse. Surprisingly few papers have attempted to develop a direct empirical test of the presence of overbidding in M&A contests. We develop such a test grounded on a necessary condition for profit maximizing bidding behavior;...