Are There Waves in Merger Activity after All?
Journal
International Journal of Industrial Organization
ISSN
0167-7187
ISSN-Digital
1873-7986
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2009-11
Author(s)
Abstract
This paper investigates the merger wave hypothesis for the US and the UK employing a Markov regime-switching model. Using quarterly data covering the last 30 years, for the US, we identify the beginning of a merger wave in the mid 1990s but not the much-discussed 1980s merger wave. We argue that the latter finding can be ascribed to the refined methods of inference offered by the Gibbs sampling approach. As opposed to the US, mergers in the UK exhibit multiple waves, with activity surging in the early 1970s and the late 1980s.
Language
English
Keywords
Merger waves
Markov regime-switching regression model
Gibbs sampling
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Elsevier
Publisher place
Amsterdam [u.a.]
Volume
27
Number
6
Start page
708
End page
718
Pages
11
Subject(s)
Eprints ID
244893