Assessing the Effects of Ownership Change on Women and Minority Employees: Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data

While there have been numerous papers on the employment and wage effects of mergers and acquisitions, there has been no direct analysis of the impact of such ownership changes on minority and female workers. This is an unexplored "equity" dimension of these transactions. We fill this gap by analyzing linked employer-employee data for the entire population of Swedish workers and approximately 16,000 manufacturing plants for the period 1985-1998. For each worker employed in these establishments (as well as the entire population of workers), we have data on gender, age, national origin, level of education, type of education, location, industrial sector, annual earnings, as well as each employee's complete work history during the period. We also have data on numerous plant and firm-level characteristics, which allows us to control for additional factors that might result in changes in labor composition and relative compensation. Our findings suggest that ownership change does not significantly alter the relative earnings and employment status of minority and female workers.

The Political Ecology of Takeovers: Thoughts On Harmonizing the European Corporate Governance Environment

Economic policy debate in the United States during the 1980s focused on the dynamics of bidder and target tactics in hostile takeovers. Confronted with the largest transactions in business history, financial economists took advantage of developments in econometric techniques to conduct virtually real time studies of the impact on firm value of each new bidder tactic and target defense. For courts and lawyers, hostile takeovers subjected standard features of corporate law to the equivalent of a stress x-ray, revealing previously undetected doctrinal cracks. Congress held seemingly endless hearings on the subject, although managing to enact only relatively innocuous tax penalties on particular defensive tactics the public found especially offensive. State legislatures, closer to the political action, acted more substantively, if less wisely. Whether or not takeovers created new wealth they did result in its transfer, and at least one of the parties from whom wealth was transferred – target management – had remarkable influence in state legislatures. When labor also came actively to oppose hostile takeovers, the coalition was virtually unstoppable. The decade saw some thirty-four states pass more than sixty-five major laws restricting corporate takeovers, including states discouraging partial offers and front-end loaded offers. The 1980s have now closed transactionally as well as chronologically. The first quarter of 1991 marked the lowest level of merger and acquisition activity since the first quarter of 1980. The passing of this remarkable decade invites a broader perspective, which can be helpfully thought of as the political ecology of takeovers. An ecological perspective builds on the proposition that phenomena are embedded in interactive systems – a rich web of mutually dependent relationships. Thus, a seemingly independent event cannot be fully evaluated without understanding how it relates to the environmental forces to which it was a response and which, in turn, respond to it. What the narrow focus of the 1980s debate missed was an appreciation of the complex economic corporate governance and political environments in which hostile takeovers are embedded. Corporate acquisitions are a response to real conditions in the economic environment. The choice among acquisition techniques, most importantly between friendly and hostile transactions, depends both upon the economic motivation for the transaction and upon conditions in the corporate governance environment. Finally, conditions in the corporate governance environment are directly influenced by politics; both what is allowed and prohibited is defined, in the first instance, by legislation. My goal in this article is two-fold. I begin by sketching the political ecology of takeovers in the United States – the interaction of economics, corporate governance and politics that shaped the experience of the 1980s. I then make a tentative effort at applying the insights gained from an ecological perspective to the current endeavor to change dramatically the European corporate governance environment through the harmonization of takeover and company law in the European Community. Sheltered by the cloak of political naivete commonly allowed those attempting comparative analysis from a distance, I will argue that an ecological understanding of takeovers suggests a different approach than that reflected so far in the debate over the terms of harmonization. This approach is based on what I term the mutability principle

Foreign Acquisition and Employment Effects in Swedish Manufacturing

This paper investigates the employment effects of foreign acquisitions in acquired firms in Swedish manufacturing during the 1990s, a period characterized by a dramatic increase in foreign ownership. To handle likely endogeneity problems, we evaluate the effects of foreign acquisitions on the targeted firms’ employment by combining propensity score matching with difference-in-difference estimation. We find some evidence of positive employment effects in firms taken over by foreigners and it seems that the employment of skilled labor increases more than the employment of less-skilled labor. Moreover, we examine whether the employment impact of foreign ownership differs between takeovers of Swedish MNEs and non-MNEs. Our results indicate that the positive employment effects only appear in acquired non-MNEs. Furthermore, we observe shifts in skill intensities toward higher shares of skilled labor in non-MNEs taken over by foreign MNEs but not in acquired Swedish MNEs.Foreign acquisitions, labor demand, matching, difference-in difference, multinational enterprises

Cross-Border Acquisitions, Multinationals and Wage Elasticities

The growing number of cross-border acquisitions has in many countries raised concerns about labor demand consequences. In this study, we use detailed firm level data to examine how increased internationalization and multinational activity affect the volatility of employment, or rather, the wage elasticity of labor demand. We analyze whether the wage elasticity of labor demand differs between multinational and non-multinational firms as well as between foreign-owned and domestic firms, and we are able to distinguish between different skill groups of employees. Moreover, we separate between an acquisition effect and a general ownership effect. Our results do not show any general difference in wage elasticities between different types of firms.FDI; Cross-Border Acquisitions; Multinational Enterprises; Foreign Ownership; Labor Demand; Skill Groups; GMM

Acquisitions, Multinationals and Wage Dispersion

Multinational firms pay relatively high wages. Less is known about the wage structure within multinational and non-multinational firms. We examine the impact of acquisitions on wage dispersion in Sweden using a large matched employer-employee data set. Foreign acquisitions of Swedish firms increase wage dispersion by increasing wages for high-skilled workers. The positive impact is concentrated to CEOs and managers, whereas other groups are either negatively affected or not affected at all. The impact on high-skilled workers’ wages seems to be caused by the acquisition rather than the ownership itself, since ownership changes from foreign to Swedish result in similar increases.FDI; Multinational Companies; Foreign Ownership; Wage-Dispersion; Skill Groups; Matched Employer-Employee Data

Assessing the Effects of Mergers and Acquisitions on Firm Performance, Plant Productivity, and Workers: New Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data

Studies of the effects of mergers and acquisitions focus on a single unit of analysis: firms, plants, or workers. In contrast, we model these events as transactions that simultaneously have cross-levels effects. Based on the theory of human capital, we generate a set of predictions regarding the antecedents and consequences of firm, plant, and worker turnover. Our empirical analysis is based on longitudinal, linked employer-employee data for virtually the entire population of Swedish manufacturing firms and employees for the period 1985-1998. These data allow us to assess the effects of mergers and acquisitions on firm performance, plant productivity, levels of employment, and compensation. Consistent with human capital theory, we find that mergers and acquisitions lead to improvements in firm performance and plant productivity, although they also result in the downsizing of establishments and firms. These transactions also appear to enhance the careers of workers because they provide a mechanism for improving the sorting and matching or workers and managers to firms and industries that best suit their skills.

Foreign Acquisition, Wages and Productivity

This paper studies the effect of foreign acquisition on wages and total factor productivity (TFP) in the years following a takeover by using unique detailed firm-level data for Sweden for the period 1993-2002. The paper takes particular account of the potential endogeneity of the acquisition decision (for example due to “cherry picking”) by implementing an instrumental variable approach and propensity score matching with difference-in-difference estimation technique. Moreover, in line with recent literature on firm heterogeneity in international trade, this paper allows for the acquisition effect to differ depending on whether the targeted firms were domestic multinational or non-multinationals before the foreign takeover. This paper also allows for the acquisition effect to differ depending on whether the acquisition is horizontal or vertical. The result shows that foreign acquisition has no effects on overall, skilled or less-skilled wage growth neither in targeted Swedish MNEs nor in targeted Swedish non-MNEs and neither if the acquisition was motivated by vertical or horizontal motives. However, the results indicate that both targeted Swedish MNEs and non- MNEs have better growth in TFP after vertical foreign acquisition only but no such impact from horizontal foreign acquisitionheterogeneity; multinational enterprises; acquisitions; wage differentials; productivity; matching; difference-in-difference

Ownership Change, Productivity, and Human Capital: New Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data in Swedish Manufacturing

Empirical studies of the impact of changes in ownership of manufacturing plants on productivity (e.g., Lichtenberg and Siegel (1987, 1990a, 1990b), McGuckin and Nguyen (1995, 2001), and Maksimovic and Phillips (2001)) have provided limited evidence on how such transactions affect investment in human capital and have been based strictly on U.S. and U.K. data. We attempt to fill these gaps, based on an analysis of matched employer-employee data from over 19,000 Swedish manufacturing plants for the years 1985-1998. The sample covers virtually the entire population of manufacturing plants with 20 or more employees and a probability-based sample of smaller plants. We assess whether there are differential effects on productivity and human capital for different types of ownership changes, such as partial and full acquisitions and divestitures, and related and unrelated acquisitions. Our results suggest that ownership change results in an increase in relative productivity. We also find that plants involved in these transactions experience increases in average employee age, experience, and the percentage of employees with a college education. Ownership change also leads to an increase in wages and a reduction in the percentage of female workers. All of these patterns emerge most strongly for full acquisitions and divestitures and unrelated acquisitions.

Acquisitions, Multinationals, and Wage Dispersion

Multinational firms pay relatively high wages. Less is known about the wage structure within multinational and non-multinational firms. We examine the impact of acquisitions on wage dispersion in Sweden using a large matched employer-employee data set. Foreign acquisitions of Swedish firms increase wage dispersion by increasing wages for high-skilled workers. The positive impact is concentrated to CEOs and managers, whereas other groups are either negatively affected or not affected at all. The impact on high-skilled workers’ wages seems to be caused by the acquisition rather than the ownership itself, since ownership changes from foreign to Swedish result in similar increases.FDI; Multinational Companies; Foreign ownership; Wage-Dispersion; Skill groups; Matched Employer-Employee data