UC Santa Barbara

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) among corporations are truly stark phenomena in today’s international economy: companies from one country acquire or merge with a company of another country. But today’s global economy reveals a lopsided distribution of M&As, i.e. some countries are much more successful in attracting cross-border M&As thereby achieving a better outcome in the development of cross-border corporate M&A market, while others are less successful or unsuccessful. This study questions what leads to successful development of cross-border M&A markets. The study applies a mixed method of statistical analysis and comparative case studies. The statistical analysis, which used a panel data of 167 countries between 2002 and 2012, results in emphasizing the role of the degree of democracy in the development of cross-border corporate M&A markets. The case studies look into Korea and Japan to examine what the ‘real-world’ examples say about the outcome of statistical analysis. The qualitative study corroborates the statistical findings.