Current accounts in the euro area: An intertemporal approach

This paper uses an intertemporal model of the current account to evaluate the fluctuations in current account balances experienced by Euro area countries over the last three decades. In the model current account balances are used to smooth consumption and they are driven by expectations about future income and relative prices. This simple model is not rejected for six (Belgium, France, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain) of the ten Euro area countries examined, although the model tends to underestimate their current account volatility. The analysis also shows that the relative contributions to current account balances of future output and relative prices differ across countries. Expectations of future growth increased in all Southern European countries at the creation of the Euro but they had considerably diverged by 2005. While in Portugal these expectations are now below its historical mean, in Spain they are at a historical high.Current account; euro; external deficits; economic integration;

The European M&A industry: Trends, patterns and shortcomings

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the process of European mergers and acquisitions. We characterize the main features of M&A activity in Europe in the period 2001-2007. We review the process of M&A regulatory integration and patterns of activity. Most European M&As still take place among domestic firms, although cross-border transactions are larger in value and have been slightly increasing, especially in regulated industries. Transactions are likely to be friendly, partially negotiated via public tender offers and private deals, and paid in cash, especially for smaller deals. Competing bids are still fairly rare and less likely to be completed. Target shareholders obtain an average premium of around 20% and this premium is slightly declining with deal size. Regulatory differences are large, particularly in the application of takeover regulations, and uncertainty persists in the predictability of the national regulatory agencies.European cross-border; domestic merger; acquisitions; M&A trends;

Differences in exchange rate pass-through in the euro area.

This paper focuses on the pass-through of exchange rate changes into the prices of imports made by euro area countries originating outside the area. Using data on import unit values for thirteen different product categories for each country, we estimate industry-specific rates of pass-through across and within countries for all euro members. In the short-run, pass-through rates differ across industries and countries and are less than one. In the longrun neither full pass-through nor equality of pass-through rates across industries and countries can be rejected. Differences exist across euro area countries in the degree that a common exchange rate movement gets transmitted into consumer prices and costs of production indices. Most of these differences in transmission rates are due to the distinct degree of openness of each country to non-euro area imports rather than to the heterogeneity in the structure of imports.Exchange rate; pass-through; euro; monetary union;

M&AS performance in the European financial industry

This paper looks at the performance record of M&As that took place in the European Union financial industry in the period 1998-2002. First, the paper reports evidence on shareholder returns from mergers. Merger announcements brought positive excess returns to the shareholders of the target company around the date of the announcement, with a slight positive excess return in the 3-month period prior to announcement. Returns to shareholders of the acquiring firms were essentially zero around announcement. One year after the announcement, excess returns were not significantly different from zero for either targets or acquirers. The paper also provides evidence on changes in operating performance for the subsample of mergers involving banks. M&As usually involved targets with lower-than-average operating performance for their sector. The transactions resulted in significant improvements in the target banks' performance, beginning on average two years after the transaction was completed. Return on equity of the target companies increased by an average of 7%, and the same firms also experienced efficiency improvements.mergers and acquisitions; financial industry;

Sources of gains from international portfolio diversification.

This paper looks at the determinants of country and industry specific factors in international portfolio returns using a sample of thirty-six countries and thirty-nine industries over the last three decades. Country factors have remained relatively stable over the sample period, while industry factors have significantly increased during the last decade. The importance of industry and country factors is correlated with measures of economic and financial international integration and development. Country factors are smaller for countries integrated in world financial markets and have declined as the degree of financial integration and the number of countries pursuing financial liberalizations has increased. Higher international financial integration within an industry increases the importance of industry factors in explaining returns. Economic integration of production also helps in explaining returns. Countries with a more specialized production activity have higher country factors.International diversification; Country/Industry effects; Financial integration;

Explaining the diversification discount

Diversified firms trade at a discount relative to similar single-segment firms. We argue in this paper that this observed discount is not per se evidence that diversification destroys value. Firms choose to diversify. Firm characteristics, which make firms diversify might also cause them to be discounted. Not taking into account these firm characteristics might wrongly attribute the observed discount to diversification. Data from the Compustat Industry Segment File from 1978 to 1996 are used to select a sample of single segment and diversifying firms. We use three alternative econometric techniques to control for the endogeneity of the diversification decision. All three methods suggest the presence of self-selection in the decision to diversify and a negative correlation between firm's choice to diversify and firm value. The diversification discount always drops, and sometimes turns into a premium, when we control for the endogeneity of the diversification decision. We do a similar analysis in a sample of refocusing firms. Again, some evidence of self-selection by firms exists and we now find a positive correlation between firm's choice to refocus and firm value. These results consistently suggest the importance of taking the endogeneity of the diversification status into account, in analyzing its effects on firm value.Diversification discount;

Value creation in European M&As.

This paper looks at the value generated to shareholders by the announcement of mergers and acquisitions involving firms in the European Union. Target firm shareholders receive on average a statistically significant excess return of 9%. Acquirers' excess returns are null on average. Excess returns differ significantly depending on whether the merger involves two firms from the same European country or is a cross-border transaction. Cross-border transactions generate less total value than national mergers. Furthermore, when a cross-border merger occurs in an industry in which governments historically have been actively involved, the transaction results in a net destruction of value to shareholders.Cross-border mergers; shareholder returns; value creation; regulation

Non-linear adjustment of import prices in the European Union

This paper focuses on the non-linear adjustment of import prices in national currency to shocks in exchange rates and foreign prices measured in the exporters' currency of products originating outside the euro area and imported into European Union countries (EU-15). The paper looks at three different types of non-linearities: a) non-proportional adjustment (the size of the adjustment grows more than proportionally with the size of the misalignments); b) asymmetric adjustment to cost-increasing and cost-decreasing shocks, and c) the existence of thresholds in the size of misalignments below which no adjustment takes place. There is evidence of more than proportional adjustment towards long-run equilibrium in manufacturing industries. In these industries, the adjustment is faster the further away current import prices are from their implied long-run equilibrium. In contrast, a proportional linear adjustment cannot be rejected for some other imports (especially within agricultural and commodity imports). There is also strong evidence of asymmetry in the adjustment to long-run equilibrium. Deviations from long-run equilibrium due to exchange rate appreciations of the home currency result in a faster adjustment than those caused by a home currency depreciation. Finally, we also find that adjustment takes place in the industries in our sample only when deviations are above certain thresholds and that these thresholds tend to be somewhat smaller for manufacturing industries than for commodities.exchange rate adjustment; monetary union;

Distribution margins, imported inputs, and the insensitivity of the CPI to exchange rates

Border prices of traded goods are highly sensitive to exchange rates, but the CPI and the retail prices of traded goods are more stable. Our paper decomposes the sources of this stability for twenty-one OECD countries, focusing on the important roles of distribution margins and imported inputs in transmitting exchange rate fluctuations into consumption prices. We provide rich cross-country and cross-industry details on distribution margins and their sensitivity to exchange rates, imported inputs used in different categories of consumption goods, and weights in consumption of nontradables, home tradables and imported goods. While distribution margins damp the sensitivity of consumption prices of tradable goods to exchange rates, they also lead to enhanced pass-through when nontraded goods prices are sensitive to exchange rates. Such price sensitivity arises because imported inputs are used in production of home nontradables. Calibration exercises show that, at under 5%, the United States has the lowest expected CPI sensitivity to exchange rates of all countries examined. On average, calibrated exchange rate pass-through into CPIs is expected to be closer to 15%.Exchange rate; pass through; import prices; distribution margins;