Mergers and Merger Policy

This book is a collection of essays by leading policy-makers and academics confronting the most important questions about the merger phenomenon. This issue has been receiving a great deal of public attention following a series of huge and contested takeover bids. At the same time the British merger policy has been the subject of government review. Does the merger process serve as a crucial check on management efficiency, or is it the result of too little control or too much management discretion? Do shareholders and consumers gain or lose from mergers? Is the effect of mergers on competition the only public concern, and how anyway is competition to be assessed in an economy increasingly dominated by foreign imports? Can policy-makers learn from abroad, or are the current institutions and procedures the best available? The contributions to this volume aim to show how such questions can be answered.