Improved method for detecting acquirer fixed effects

Eric de Bodt, Jean-Gabriel Cousin and Richard Roll

Journal of Empirical Finance, 2019, vol. 50, issue C, 20-42

Abstract: Large merger and acquisition (M&A) samples feature the pervasive presence of repetitive acquirers. They offer an attractive empirical context for revealing the presence of acquirer fixed effects (permanent abnormal performance). But panel data M&A are quite heterogeneous; just a few acquirers undertake many M&As. Does this feature affect statistical inference? To investigate the issue, our study relies on simulations based on real data sets. The results suggest the existence of a bias, confirming suspicions reported in the extant literature about the validity of fixed-effect regression based statistics (R- square, adjusted R- square and fixed effects Fisher tests) used to detect the presence and significance of acquirer fixed effects. We introduce a new resampling method to detect acquirer fixed effects with attractive statistical properties (size and power) for samples of acquirers that complete at least five acquisitions. The proposed method confirms the presence of acquirer fixed effects but only for a marginal fraction of the acquirer population. This result is robust to endogenous attrition and varying time periods between successive transactions.

Keywords: Mergers and acquisitions; Fixed effects; Attrition; Panel data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927539818300872
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:empfin:v:50:y:2019:i:c:p:20-42

DOI: 10.1016/j.jempfin.2018.12.003

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Empirical Finance is currently edited by R. T. Baillie, F. C. Palm, Th. J. Vermaelen and C. C. P. Wolff

More articles in Journal of Empirical Finance from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().