Growth Effects of Mergers and Acquisitions: A Sector-level Study of OECD countries

The purpose of the paper is to analyze the impact of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) sales on economic growth. The analysis is conducted by sectors: primary, manufacturing and services. M&A sales are disaggregated by sectors and also into domestic and cross-border M&A sales. The group of the OECD countries is examined. After applying a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator, which controls for endogeneity of M&A, we find no support of the hypothesis that M&A activity contributes to economic growth, except for growth of the services sector. Both, financial and non-financial domestic services M&A, have a positive effect on services growth. Primary sector and manufacturing M&A have negative effects on their own sectors growth rates. At the aggregate economic level, the impact of M&A on growth is also negative.