Background Mass shootings are common in the United States. They are the most visible form of firearm violence. Their effect on personal decisions to purchase firearms is not well-understood. Objective To determine changes in handgun acquisition patterns after the mass shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 and San Bernardino, California, in 2015. Design Time-series analysis using season...

Throughout the past decade, the telecommunications industry has started to evolve from an essentially multi-domestic into a global industry. The relaxation of foreign ownership restrictions, deregulation, privatization, and technological change have triggered a wave of international acquisitions involving telecommunications service providers. The underlying motives for these acquisitions are di...

By combining two large data sets (on international trade flows and cross-border mergers and acquisitions – M&As), we test two implications of Neary’s (2003, 2007) general oligopolistic equilibrium (GOLE) model (incorporating strategic interaction between firms in a general equilibrium setting). In terms of economic importance, the dominant merger wave variable is a positive global-all effect, i...

The US banking sector has consolidated through acquisitions in recent decades, resulting a significant decrease the number of lending institutions. Agricultural commercial banks have been preferred target such acquisitions, representing 15%–40% all between 1994 and 2018. In this study, we examine postacquisition performance that acquire agricultural terms profitability, bankruptcy risk, loan mo...

I lovingly dedicate this dissertation to my wife, Yanfang Duan, who accompanied me on this long, arduous journey and freed me from every concern; to my daughter, Caroline, who brought me enormous, invaluable happiness; and to my parents for their constant, unwavering support. v Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without help and support from many established scholar...

Rapid technological changes, shortened product life cycle, limited resources, and increasingly intensive competition have forced many companies to source and develop their technology and innovation capability quickly and externally. “Successful organizations are constantly seeking ways to foster innovation and new product or service development” (Kennedy, Payne, & Whitehead, 2002, p.149), espec...

We examine theoretically and empirically the determinants of the degree of complementarity between bidders and targets in mergers and acquisitions. Our paper extends existing literature, which demonstrates that firms that have stronger complementarities are more likely to become merger partners, by addressing the heterogeneity in bidders’ and targets’ complementarity in observed acquisitions. O...

This paper uses a unique data set of linked employer-employee data in which asset transfers between firms can be identified to study the manner in which employment policy changes in the aftermath of a merger or acquisition (M&A). Using parametric duration models with unobserved heterogeneity and modeling the status of the employer with respect to M&A activity, it appear that the employment poli...