Corporate Takeovers: The Efficiency Arguments

Abstract

In recent years, the tender offer takeover has been praised and damned with a ferocity suggesting that the survival of capitalism is at stake. The truth, as in most disputes with substantial metaphysical content, is more prosaic. Some takeovers enhance economic efficiency, some degrade it, and the balance of effects, though not fully known, is most likely a close one. In this essay I try to lay bare the debate's foundations and bring it back to earth with an injection of evidence.