Publikationen

Unsere Forschungergebnisse unterstützen die gesellschaftliche Debatte rund um aktuelle finanzökonomische Fragestellungen. Durch die Veröffentlichung der Arbeiten in internationalen Fachzeitschriften und unserer Working Paper Series sollen diese für einen möglichst breiten Adressatenkreis zugänglich werden.

HFRC Working Paper Series

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Publikationen von Gishan Dissanaike

The economics of law enforcement: Quasi-experimental evidence from corporate takeover law

Gishan Dissanaike, Wolfgang Drobetz, Paul P. Momtaz, Jörg Rocholl
Journal of Corporate Finance | 12/2020 | Forthcoming
This paper examines the impact of takeover law enforcement on corporate acquisitions. We use the European Takeover Directive as a natural experiment, which harmonizes takeover law across countries, while leaving its enforcement to the discretion of individual countries. We exploit this heterogeneity in enforcement quality across countries in a difference-in-differences-in-differences model, while employing an overall inductive research approach, following Karpoff and Whittry’s (2018) recommendation. We find that acquirer returns increase in countries with improvements in takeover law, driven by better target selection and lower cost of financing. The increase in acquirer returns is lower in weak enforcement jurisdictions, which we identify by developing a novel Takeover Law Enforcement Index (TLEI). The findings show that takeover law can mitigate agency conflicts, but its true value depends on its enforcement. Our results are strongly robust to alternative model specifications.

Competition policy and the profitability of corporate acquisitions

Gishan Dissanaike, Wolfgang Drobetz, Paul P. Momtaz
Journal of Corporate Finance | 06/2020
Merger control exists to help safeguard effective competition. However, findings from a natural experiment suggest that regulatory merger control reduces the profitability of corporate acquisitions. Uncertainty about merger control decisions reduces takeover threats from foreign and very large acquirers, therefore facilitating agency-motivated deals. Valuation effects are more pronounced in countries with stronger law enforcement and in more concentrated industries. Our results suggest that competition policy may impede the efficiency of the M&A market.