Data and Code for: "A New Era of Midnight Mergers: Antitrust Risk and Investor Disclosures"

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) John M. Barrios, Washington University in St. Louis; Thomas G. Wollmann, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
input			08/17/2023 02:53:PM
output			08/17/2023 02:49:PM
scratch			08/17/2023 02:54:PM
README.docx	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document	27.3 KB	12/30/2023 09:58:AM
README.pdf	application/pdf	725.7 KB	12/30/2023 07:22:AM
master.do	text/plain	953 bytes	12/30/2023 09:59:AM
name_cleaner.do	text/plain	8.3 KB	08/19/2023 02:38:PM
step_0_item2_file_names.do	text/plain	367 bytes	08/08/2023 09:17:AM
step_10_format_sic_codes.do	text/plain	387 bytes	08/12/2023 07:41:AM
step_11_output_ex1_v6.do	text/plain	59.8 KB	08/12/2023 07:42:AM

Project Citation:

Barrios, John M., and Wollmann, Thomas G. Data and Code for: “A New Era of Midnight Mergers: Antitrust Risk and Investor Disclosures.” Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2024. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-10-09. https://doi.org/10.3886/E193241V1

Project Description

Summary:

This workspace contains data and code for the article "A New Era of Midnight Mergers: Antitrust Risk and Investor Disclosures." The article is summarized as follows.

Antitrust authorities search public documents to discover anticompetitive mergers. Thus, investor disclosures may alert them to deals that would otherwise escape scrutiny, creating disincentives for managers to divulge transactions. We study this behavior in publicly traded US companies. First, we estimate a regression discontinuity that exploits mandatory disclosure thresholds stipulated by securities law. We find that releasing information to investors poses antitrust risk. Second, we present a method for measuring undisclosed merger activity that relies on financial accounting reporting requirements. We find that undisclosed mergers total $2.3 trillion between 2002 and 2016.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: stealth consolidation; financial disclosure; mergers; antitrust

JEL Classification:
      G34 Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Voting; Proxy Contests; Corporate Governance
      K21 Antitrust Law
      L40 Antitrust Issues and Policies: General
      M40 Accounting and Auditing: General

Geographic Coverage: United States

Time Period(s): 1/1/2002 – 12/31/2016

Data Type(s): event/transaction data

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Published Versions

V1 [2024-10-09]

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