Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/80847 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
KOF Working Papers No. 312
Publisher: 
ETH Zurich, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, Zurich
Abstract: 
While previous studies on mergers and acquisitions (M&As) mostly relied on large firms, our study is based on a sample that includes all Swiss M&As that took place in the period 2006-2008, mostly of which have been SMEs. We investigate the firm characteristics that determine the innovation and economic performance of M&A. The performance measures are based on firms' assessments. These measures are regressed on a series of possible determining factors as postulated in existing theoretical and empirical literature. M&A performance is primarily affected by specific M&A characteristics, but not by general market characteristics such as demand development or competition conditions. Rather astonishingly, it is also not affected by firm characteristics such as capital intensity, human capital endowment and firm size. There is an interesting exception: innovation activities. This means that with the remarkable exception of innovation activities the level of M&A performance is determined primarily by factors of the M&A process itself.
Subjects: 
mergers and acquisitions
economic performance
innovation performance
micro data
JEL: 
L20
O31
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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